BusinessMirror August 12, 2022 by BusinessMirror

O UTGOING Senate President Vicente Sotto III declared at 7:41 pm of Wednesday as adjourned sine die the third regular session of the 18th Congress on the part of the Senate, capping what Minority Leader Franklin Drilon described as “one of the most productive sessions” of the chamber, a feat made remarkable by the fact that much of it was in a pandemic. Sotto for his leadership, and lauded and thanked as well the seven other “graduating” members of the chamber, including two other pillars—Drilon and Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto. introduced a resolution meant to prevent a month-long leadership gap in the Senate, as the terms of Sotto and Recto end at noon of June 30.

14 LUCIO & SUSAN CO

FOOD & BEVERAGE Philippines’ Richest 2022 WEALTH OF THE

2022, completing

C  A Farm and industry output currently account for less than 40 percent of gross domestic product, while and the global outlook has dimmed. Still, Balisacan said the economy can expand by at least 7 percent this perience in crafting a new economic development plan. Before taking helm of the antitrust body, he served public-private partnership infraPANDEMIC CHALLENGE MARKS 18TH CONGRESS PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 52.4120 ■ JAPAN 0.4073 ■ UK 66.0496 ■ HK 6.6799 ■ SINGAPORE 38.2625 ■ AUSTRALIA 37.6004 ■ SAUDI ) S “H,” A BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business www.businessmirror.com.ph P.  |     | 7 DAYS A WEEK■ Thursday, June 2, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 237 2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS ‘PHL’S H2 GROWTH RESTS ON NEW ECONOMIC TEAM’ S “PHL,” A THE BRP Melchora Aquino, the second of two multi-role response vessels procured by the Philippine government from Japan, is welcomed by the

from

Drilon moved to elect Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri as the acting Senate President Pro Tempore from noon of June 30 until July 25, when the 19th Congress ﬁ rstEarlierconvenes.in the day, colleagues signaled that Zubiri had secured GRACE UY $1.75 B TELECOM $1.7 B FASHION B PHILIPPINES’ 50

See “Tourism,” A2 T HE House Committee on Ways and Means on Thursday said it will form a working group with the Depart ment of Finance, Bureau of Cus toms, Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the Food and Drug Admin istration to track High Fructose Corn Syrup imports from bever ageAlbaymakers.Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda issued the statement following President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s disapproval of the proposal to im port 300,000 MT of sugar. “The President’s decision highlights just how sensitive this issue is. The sugar sector needs 1.3 workers per hectare cultivat ed, versus just 0.7 workers for the agriculture sector in general, and 0.6 workers for rice. That means sugar is among the most laborintensive sectors in agricul ture, losses among sugar farms will be more displacing among sugar workers than rice tarif fication was for rice farmers,” he “150,000said. MT of the proposed 300,000 MT was supposed to be for bottler’s grade sugar, or sugar that sweetened beverage makers use. Of course, absent such im ports, the beverage makers will likely resort to other sweeteners, See “House,” A2

INTERNATIONAL

In its latest Market Call report, First Metro Investment Corp. and University of Asia and the Paci c (FMIC-UA&P) Capital Markets Research said the growth momentum which gave rise to the 8.3-percent growth in the rst quarter will spill over to the second quarter. However, the performance of the economy in the third and fourth quarters will be determined by the policies to be implemented by the new economic team. Much uncertainty will greet the economic managers as the pandemic continues and commodity prices remain elevated. “The robustness in the economic recovery, founded heavily on employment gains, should spill over into Q2 [the second quarter]. And while a tighter scal space and in ation pose serious headwinds in H2 [second half], an economic team of high-quality technocrats in the new President’s cabinet can handle the emerging scenario,” the reportOnestated.ofthe major risks that post the most uncertainty to the economy is the Russia-Ukraine war which will mark its rst 100 days. The war began in February 24 this year and will reach 100 days on June 3. FMIC-UA&P Capital Markets Research said commodity prices, particularly oil prices, could remain elevated until the war in Eastern Europe is resolved. This uncertainty will lead to an average in ation of above 5 percent in the country this year. In April, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that in ation nationwide increased to 4.9 percent in April 2022. The average in ation for the rst four months of the year stood at 3.7 B J M N. D C

HEADWINDS TO SLOW PHL H2 GROWTH–THINK TANK tOUrISM lEaDErS tO DOt: ‘lEt’S KEEP haVIng FUn’ House panel to keep tabs on sugar substitute imports Continued on A2 The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog near the THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG NEAR THE Continued on A2 Continued on A2 THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY A broader look at today’s business www.businessmirror.com.ph n Friday, August 12, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 308 P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 24 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK BusinessMirrorROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS 2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS SOURCE: WWW.FORBES.COM/PHILIPPINES RANK NAME NET WORTH INDUSTRY 1 SY SIBLINGS $12.6 B DIVERSIFIED 2 MANUEL VILLAR $7.8 B REAL ESTATE 3 ENRIQUE RAZON JR. $5.6 B LOGISTICS 4 LANCE GOKONGWEI & SIBLINGS $3.1 B DIVERSIFIED 5 ABOITIZ FAMILY $2.9 B DIVERSIFIED 6 ISIDRO CONSUNJI & SIBLINGS $2.65 B CONSTRUCTION & ENGINEERING 7 TONY TAN CAKTIONG & FAMILY $2.6 B FOOD & BEVERAGE 8 JAIME ZOBEL DE AYALA & FAMILY $2.55 B DIVERSIFIED 9 RAMON ANG $2.45 B FOOD & BEVERAGE 10 ANDREW TAN $2.4 B DIVERSIFIED 11 LUCIO TAN $2 B DIVERSIFIED 12 TY SIBLINGS $1.9 B FINANCE & INVESTMENTS 13 DENNIS ANTHONY & MARIA

By Bianca Cuaresma @BcuaresmaBM

“Despite the many challenges that happened during my tenure as your Speaker, we have risen and proven ourselves to be One Congress, ready to serve our people,” Velasco told his colleagues. “One Congress, ready to scrutinize the national budget, to pass laws, to conduct hearings, to provide oversight on the implementation of laws, and to generally make it easier for the next Congress and its leadership, to continue the legislative work for the sake of our kababayans,” he added. He said the pandemic forced the House leadership to be dynamic, innovative and proactive. “Despite the lingering threat Constructed by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co. in Japan, the ship, named after Tandang Sora, the Grand Woman of the Revolution during the Spanish colonial period, is part of the Maritime Safety Capability Improvement Project of the Coast Guard. ROY DOMINGO B C U. O @caiordinario

THE House of Representatives on Wednesday ended the 18th Congress, highlighting its 3-year achievements, including laws to help the country navigate through and emerge stronger from the Covid-19 pandemic. In his valedictory speech, Speaker Lord Allan Velasco said the 18th Congress was a key and steady partner of President Duterte in passing laws that promoted economic development, strengthened the administration of justice and the rule of law, enhanced the protection of labor and social welfare, improved the quality of and increased access to education and information, enhanced our health and emergency response system, and strengthened our political and governmental institutions. “Despite the many challenges that happened during my tenure as your Speaker, we have risen and proven ourselves to be One Congress, ready to serve our people,” Velasco told his colleagues. “One Congress, ready to scrutinize the national budget, to pass laws, to conduct hearings, to provide oversight on the implementation of laws, and to generally make it easier for the next Congress and its leadership, to continue the legislative work for the sake of our kababayans,” he added. He said the pandemic forced the House leadership to be dynamic, innovative and proactive. “Despite the lingering threat Philippine Coast Guard at the Port Area Manila Wednesday, June 1, its maiden voyage Japan. Constructed by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co. in Japan, the ship, named after Tandang Sora, the Grand Woman of the Revolution during the Spanish colonial period, is part of the Maritime Safety Capability Improvement Project of the Coast Guard. ROY DOMINGO B C U. O @caiordinario THE performance of the Philippine economy in the second half of the year will rest squarely on the shoulders of the incoming administration’s economic team, according to a local think tank. Sotto closes ‘productive’ session; Zubiri next SP?

think tank Fitch Solutions said the Philippines is headed to slower growth in the second half of the year, as challenges to the country’s economic expansion will begin to intensify. In an analysis published by Fitch Solutions on Thursday, the think tank forecast growth to average at 6.6 percent in 2022. With the country’s first-quarter growth hitting 8.2 percent and the second-quarter gross domes tic product (GDP) expansion at 7.4 percent, this means that Fitch Solu tions expects the country to grow by an average of 5.4 percent for the second half of the year with their current“Overall,forecast.GDP growth in the first half of the year benefited from the reopening of borders in Febru ary and election-related spending. Moreover, a relatively accommoda tive central bank has also support ed consumption and investment to some extent. These tailwinds helped offset external headwinds stemming from elevated energy prices, a slowdown in the world economy, and tightening global monetary conditions,” Fitch Solu tions“However,said. we believe that these tailwinds will continue to fade over the coming months, while growth headwinds intensify, leading to slower growth in the second half of 2022,” it added. Fitch Solutions said these “mounting headwinds” come from a combination of softer global de mand, elevated energy prices and tightening monetary policy to wards the latter part of the year. With a now softer global growth outlook—which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts at 3.2 percent—external demand will further be dampened for Phil ippine exports and is expected to affect growth. See “Headwinds,” A2 See “Richest,” A2 By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo @akosistellaBM Special to the BusinessMirror A NUMBER of national‘moreerythingwillhaveus.notbrandneedFrascodesignatemetofersdentAssociationatslogangestingascountry’sTourismthestakeholderstourismwantDepartmentof(DOT)tokeepthepresentbrandinga“fun”destination,sugthatachangeinthemaynotbewarrantedthistime.PhilippineTourOperators(Philtoa)PresiFeAblingYutoldreportonWednesdaythatnonethestakeholdergroupsthatwithTourismSecretary-ChristinaGarciarecentlyraisedthetochangethecountryandslogan.“No,itwasanissueraisedbyanyofButiftheSecretarydoessuchaplan…maybeshenottotallychangeevbecause,it’sindeedfuninthePhilippines!’”AsidefromPhiltoa,otherstakeholdergroups that met with Garcia Frasco on July 27, as part of the lat ter’s “listening tour,” were the Tourism Congress of the Philippines, Philippine Travel Agencies Association, Pacific Asia Travel Association-Philip pines, the National Association of Independent Travel Agen cies, among others. The DOT chief confirmed the change in country brand ing and slogan, emphasizing, “We’re taking this very seri ously and giving it just thought, taking into consideration also the change in circumstances since the pandemic, where people are now in search for substantial and immersive experiences that are anchored on a cultural experience….We want the brand to fully en capsulate all of these nuances of our country beyond having fun.” (See, “DOT pins hope on higher budget in 2023 to change country branding,” in the Business M irror , Au gust 11, 2022.)

& RETAIL 15 HARTONO KWEEFANUS & FAMILY $1.5

By VG Cabuag @villygc T HE Sy siblings of the SM group and Manuel B. Villar Jr., are still the country’s richest persons, according to Forbes magazine but said many of the local ty coons’ wealth shrank from the previous year mainly as a result of the pandemic headwinds. The magazine said the Sy siblings, heirs to the empire built by their late father Henry Sy Sr., retain the top spot but their net worth fell by $4 bil lion to $12.6 billion, the biggest drop in dollar terms. Villar, however, defied the odds and added $1.1 billion to his fortunes at $7.8 billion after he listed his real estate investment trust. He remains at number two on the Forbes list, and is also the country’s richest person in terms of individual wealth. Villar was also featured on the cover of the August issue of Forbes“TwelveAsia.years ago, business man and senator Manuel Villar was crushed in his bid to get elected as president, winning only 15 percent of the votes. But that loss didn’t slow him down. He threw himself back into work, scaling up his main business of real estate devel opment. By 2018, share-price gains for his listed companies let him achieve the status of No. 2 on the Philippines’ 50 Richest list, a spot he still holds with a fortune of $7.8 billion,” the magazine said.

THE performance of the Philippine economy in the second half of the year will rest squarely on the shoulders of the incoming administration’s economic team, according to a local think tank. Sotto closes ‘productive’ session; Zubiri next SP?

RICHEST DROPS DESPITE ECONOMIC RECOVERY

PESO E xchang E rat ES n US 55.7520 n jaPan 0.4196 n UK 68.1234 n h K 7.1049 n ch I na 8.2909 n SI nga P O r E 40.7276 n aUS t ral I a 39.4613 n EU 57.4357 n KO r E a 0.0430 n S aU DI arab I a 14.8316 Source BSP (August 11, 2022) A broader look at today’s business www.businessmirror.com.ph n Friday, August 12, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 308 P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 26 pages | 7 dAys A week BusinessMirror

O UTGOING Senate President Vicente Sotto III declared at 7:41 pm of Wednesday as adjourned sine die the third regular session of the 18th Congress on the part of the Senate, capping what Minority Drilon moved to elect Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri as the acting Senate President Pro Tempore from noon of June 30 until July 25, when the 19th Congress ﬁ rstEarlierconvenes.in the day, colleagues signaled that Zubiri had secured the “votes” of majority of senators who will sit in the 19th Senate, a Zubiri appears now to be the only likely candidate to stand for election as the next Senate President, after Sen. Cynthia Villar, earlier touted as a strong contender, announced she was withdrawing [ ere is no] SP race,” she told reporters, adding, “I want a simple life” and explained she just wanted to “take care of my advocacy, agriculture,” signaling her desire to keep her chairmanship of

C  A cent of gross domestic product, while can expand by at least 7 percent this helm of the antitrust body, he served PANDEMIC CHALLENGE MARKS 18TH CONGRESS PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 52.4120 ■ JAPAN 0.4073 ■ UK 66.0496 ■ HK 6.6799 ■ SINGAPORE 38.2625 ■ AUSTRALIA 37.6004 ■ SAUDI S “H,” A BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business www.businessmirror.com.ph P.  |     | 7 DAYS A WEEK■ Thursday, June 2, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 237 ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS 2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS ‘PHL’S H2 GROWTH RESTS ON NEW ECONOMIC TEAM’ S “PHL,” A THE BRP Melchora Aquino, the second of two multi-role response vessels procured by the Philippine government from Japan, is welcomed by the Philippine Coast Guard at the Port Area in Manila on Wednesday, June 1, 2022, completing its maiden voyage from Japan.

House panel eyes foregone tax payment in DITO interconnection

BusinessMirror www.businessmirror.com.phFriday, August 12, 2022A2 News Richest... Continued from A1 Tourism... Continued from A1 House... Continued from A1

“The combined wealth of tycoons on the 2022 Forbes’ list of Philippines’ 50 richest fell to US$72 billion from $79 billion last year, amid the country’s recovery from pandemic headwinds. More than two-thirds of the list ees saw their wealth shrink,” it said. Ports and casino tycoon Enrique K. Razon Jr. came in at number three on the list though his net worth is slightly down to $5.6 billion. Lance Gokongwei and siblings came in at fourth. The siblings, however, also saw their net worth fall to $3.1 billion from $4 billion lastAmongyear. the two returnees this year is the Aboitiz family, appearing at fifth on the list with a collective fortune of $2.9 billion, which includes holdings of the broader fam ily. Shares of their holding firm Aboitiz Eq uity Ventures Inc. got a boost from its power interests amid rising energy prices. Record first-quarter earnings of $200 million at engineering conglomerate DMCI Holdings lifted the fortune of Isidro Consunji and siblings by 47 percent to $2.65 billion. They notched up the biggest percentage rise this year and moved up seven spots to sixth. On the other hand, husband and wife Den nis Anthony and Maria Grace Uy, co-found ers of Converge ICT Solutions, were now on 13th place as their wealth fell over $1 billion to $1.75 billion. Shares in their broadband services provider slid following the May an nouncement that Warburg Pincus was selling a chunk of its holding. There were two new entrants who replaced their late family members. Among them is the Po family at 16th with $1.2 billion, who inherited the food empire of Ricardo Po Sr. after his death last October. Sylvia C. Wenc eslao took over as chairman of real estate developer D.M. Wenceslao and Associates and is at 39th with $340 million, following her husband Delfin J. Wenceslao Jr.’s death lastJollibeeSeptember.Foods Corp. founder Tony Tan Caktiong and family was at seventh on the list with $2.6 billion, Jaime Zobel de Ayala was eighth with $2.55 billion, Ramon S. Ang at ninth at $2.45 billion and property devel oper Andrew Tan at 10th with $2.4 billion.

Digital tax S A LCEDA a lso said that it’s high time that the commit tee discuss this provision, “because there is an inter pretation that advertising payments by Filipino com panies to Facebook, Google, and other advertising ven ues are local incomes thus taxable. So, there are seri ous policy issues attached to this concern.”

Panel chairman and Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, in a statement, said the government could be los ing “at least P7.5 million monthly due to this bypassing, if the figures alleged by the other telecom compa nies are Undertrue.”Section 120 of the National Internal Revenue Code, there is a 10-percent tax on “every overseas dispatch, message or conversation transmitted from the Philippines by telephone, telegraph, telewriter exchange, wireless and other com munication equipment service.” Salceda plans to call the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the National Telecommunications Commissions, representatives from DITO and the telecommunications companies it has interconnection agree ments with, and other key stakeholders to the hearing. “By masking the calls as local, theyare effectively do ing services smuggling. I am all for cheap international calls, because OFWs need to connect to their loved ones here. But, we cannot condone nefarious means of doing business, especially if it deprives the country of precious tax revenues, the lifeblood of government,” he “So,said. I want to know if there is basis to say that DITO is violating such tax provision, and what our tax authorities can do about it. I also want to hear DITO’s side. As our record has shown, the Committee on Ways and Means does not investigate to embarrass, to harass, or to intimidate, but to make good policy,” SalcedaSalcedaadded.also said that “if the revenues are not that high, and it proves to be a challenge for Filipino companies to go global and digital, I could even recom mend its repeal [of Section 120]. But for now, the law is the law.”

Headwinds...

Fitch Solutions, in particu lar, forecasts Philippine exports to expand by 6 percent in 2022, down from 7.8 percent in 2021. The think tank said the export slowdown has already been pref aced by the 1-percent export expansion in July—which was mainly attributable to the fall in sales for electrical, electronic equipment.Giventhat the Philippines is a net importer of energy, the country’s growth is also expect ed to be weighed down by elevat ed energy prices.

‘Still works effectively’ F OR h is part, Rajah Tours President Jose C. Clemente III posted on his Facebook page, “‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ is more than a slogan for us stakeholders in the tourism industry. It is our battlecry. In my 30 years in the business, we have never had a slogan, which totally captures not only what the Philippines is all about, but also aptly describes what the Filipinos are. This image was instrumental in propelling the country to become one of the must-visit destinations in Asia.” He added, “The slogan is meant to pique the curiosity of potential travelers and chal lenge them to find out why it IS more fun in the Philippines. It’s also a challenge to us as stakeholders to prove it and keep us on our toes to ensure that it is indeed fun to come to our shores. It is a slogan that still works effectively even after years of use. Other countries have stayed Amazing, Uniquely, Incredible and Truly Asia for years, with out fail. I hope we can remain FUN a little bit Alicemore.”Queblatin, president of the Cebu Al liance of Tour Operations Specialists, like wise told the BusinessMirror the branding or slogan was not raised during the Cebu stakeholders’ meeting with Garcia Frasco. “No, it didn’t come from us. In several occa sions, right from the very beginning, even before the time of Berna [Romulo Puyat, former DOT Secretary], we wanted to be dedicated to a branding that will really stand the test of time, meaning, we cannot keep changing it.”

Fitch Solutions said elevated energy prices have led to a dras tic increase in the Philippines’ import bill, and in turn widen ing the trade deficit. The think tank also expects energy prices to remain elevated over the re mainder of 2022. On the consumption front, the research firm said rising infla tion will continue to erode house hold purchasing power. The tank forecasts private consumption to grow by 7.5 percent in 2022, signaling a deceleration from the average 9.3 percent growth in the first half of the year. “Against the backdrop of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and adverse weather conditions in a number of food-producing countries in the region, energy and food prices will continue to be a significant source of upward price pressure in the Philip pines,” Fitch Solutions said.

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

The Section states that there shall be collected upon every overseas dis patch, message or conversa tion transmitted from the Philippines by telephone, telegraph, telewriter ex change, wireless and other communication equipment service, a tax of 10 percent on the amount paid for such services.“Theinternet is obvious ly a communication equip ment service. So, I want to know if we can interpret advertising as a message or dispatch,” he said. such as High Fructose Corn Syrup. HFCS-sweet ened beverages [that] are taxed at higher ex cise tax rates (P12/liter) than sugar-sweetened beverages (P6/liter) and these taxes can benefit the domestic sugar sector, if we can collect and use them,” he added. Salceda said the ways and means committee would ensure that the import volumes make sense with their tax payments on sweetened beverages.“Iexpect higher revenues from sweetened beverages as a result of this temporary shift, and those revenues can be used to enhance the domestic sugar industry,” he added. Salceda also called on the Sugar Regulatory Administration and the Department of Budget and Management to understand why very little sugar development programs were implement ed despite the mandate of the TRAIN Law to earmark part of the revenues from sweetened beverages towards the development of the lo cal sugar Meanwhile,sector.Salceda said several steps could be taken to address domestic sugar supply is sues.“PBBM can pursue programs to ensure that the domestic harvest (which should begin around this month) will be efficiently milled and processed to avoid wastage,” he said. Salceda said the government should also look into the implementation of the Sugar Industry Development Act, particularly the P2 billion annual mandated appropriations for the pro grams under that law. On the demand side, he said the National Biofuels Board can also exempt sugarcane from being among the sources of biofuels required to be added to domestic petroleum under the Biofuels“VP/Sec.law.Sara [Duterte] can also hopefully issue a ban on softdrinks from being sold with in public schools, as they are both unhealthy and, given current circumstances, uneconomi cal,” he “Becauseadded.the sugar import order would have coincided with the harvest season, I instead propose that major sugar imports be timed during leaner months, while imports during harvest season be in more carefully considered tranches. Before a sugar import order is con sidered, its effects on sugar farmers should be considered, and mitigating measures should al ready be proposed. Even the Rice Tariffication Law had such mechanisms,” he added. Salceda also expressed hope that the DA senior staff can propose a better-formulated schedule of imports and a package of mitigat ing measures to the President as soon as pos sible. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

Continued from A1

Supporting the initiative M E ANWHILE , t he Philippine Hotel Own ers Association (PHOA) is keeping an open mind to the possible branding change. Its Executive Director Benito C. Bengzon Jr. shared, “We support any branding initiative that will enhance the image of the country to the international and domestic markets. We would be interested to know more about the campaign from the DOT.” Bengzon was DOT Undersecretary for Tourism Development when the “fun” slo gan and branding campaign was launched in 2012, under then Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr., a former award-winning advertising executive.

THE House Committee on Ways and Means will look into the probable tax liabilities of DITO Telecommunity Corporation, in response to allegations that it is bypassing its interconnection agreements with other telecommunications companies, causing foregone interconnection payments of around P2.5 million daily, or around 1,000 international voice calls allegedly masked as local calls.

3 suspects

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

G overnment officials stressed the need for the public to get their booster shots to maintain their re duced risk from Covid-19 due to the waning effect of existing vaccines. A s of August 10, 2022, the DOH said only 16.8 million or around 23.5 percent of the 71.52 million fully vac cinated individuals nationwide have availed of their booster shots. To ensure the government’s re sponse could keep up with the ever evolving threat posed by Covid-19, he committed his administration to continue its support to the research community, whom he considers cru cial frontliners in the fight against theHpandemic.esaidthe creation of the local Virology Center and Disease Control Center would help in the said endeavor. We have been in consultation with the House of Representatives and the Senate to bring this—to create these agencies so that we can bring them to bear in what we are up to now continuing to have to fight,” Marcos said. Samuel P. Medenilla By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

Marcos: PHL to acquire next-gen vaccines to address emerging Covid-19 subvariants

www.businessmirror.com.ph Editor:

S ENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri promptly ap proved immediate imple mentation of tightened preventive protocols in the Senate premises as three senators and a number of Senate employees were tested positive for Covid-19. Emerging from an all-senators’ caucus Wednesday, Zubiri affirmed in plenary session that the Senate would be implementing measures in addition to its existing health and safety protocols starting Monday, August 15. For a start, the Senate declared a three-week lockdown for guests, but exempted resource persons invited to testify at committee hearings, but will be limited to three per agency, while other re source persons could participate remotely.Moreover, invited resource persons appearing at the hear ing would be asked to present a negative RT-PCR test result with QR code taken within 24 hours, or a negative antigen test result (taken within 12 hours) from any Department of Health (DOH)accredited facility, but self-ad ministered antigen test results without any valid certification shall not be accepted. F or committee hearings, each senator may be assisted by two members of their staff, except for the chairperson of the commit tee, the same for session duties, as the two-staff-per-senator rule will be retained. The same apply for those taking the elevator, as observance of the five-person limitation rule will be strictly implemented. Atthesametime, Zubiri, co-chair man of appealed for the understand ing of the general public as the Senate needed to impose stricter measures for the safety and health security of everyone in the Senate. “ We have members who have comorbidities. We have staff with comorbidities and according to the DOH and OCTA Research, the cases will peak in the next two weeks. So maybe, we can give ourselves a bit of a safety net for the next three weeks, at least here in the Senate,” Zubiri said. E ach of the three afflicted sena tors had announced their infec tion right after they were tested positive. They are Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Imee Marcos and Cynthia Villar. Vittorio V. Vitug

T hus, the Court ruled that FILS CAP has the authority to collect roy alties and/or license fees and sue for copyright infringement. As an assignee of copyright, it is entitled to all the rights and remedies which the assignor had with respect to the copyright,” the SC said.

By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM THREE fraudsters, including two Nigerians who allegedly stole P1.4 million and at tempted to steal another P400,000 in a phishing scam were arrested on Wednesday in a joint hot pursuit op eration in San Pedro City, Laguna. L aguna Police Director Col. Ceci lio Ison Jr. identified the suspects as Samuel Nomso Esomchi, Nigerian, 42, and resident of Baragay Buaya, Imus, Cavite; Taye John Bamidele, Nigerian, 40, and resident of Ba rangay Tandang Luna III, Imus City, Cavite; and Gladys Rias Francisco, 47, and resident of 9687 Rosas St., Barangay Maduya, Carmona, Cavite. According to the report of the San Pedro City Police Station sent to Ison, on August 10 at 2:00 p.m. at the China Bank, San Pedro Branch, Francisco attempted to withdraw P400,000 from the account of Surjan Singh Kathait, 45, an Indian businessman. As Francisco was attempting to withdraw the amount from Kathait’s account, the China Bank, San Pedro Branch coordinated with the China Bank, Carmona, Cavite branch for the supposed inter-branch withdrawal. However, the China Bank, Car mona branch received information from China Bank, Bonifacio Global City (BGC) branch that the account was hacked and possibly a victim of fraud (phishing scam). A phone call received by the San Pedro Police from the China Bank, Carmona branch prompted it to coordinate with the Cavite Pro vincial Intelligence Unit (PIU) and the Regional Anti-Cybercrime Unit (RACU) where a hot pursuit opera tion was launched. The operation resulted in the ar rest of Francisco at Barangay Nueva in San Pedro City and the two Ni gerian suspects at a Petron gas sta tion in San Pedro and Robinsons Galleria South. Cash amounting to P1.4 million that was withdrawn from the ac count earlier during the same day at the China Bank, Carmona and at the China Bank, Muntinlupa branch was also recovered. The suspects are currently un der the custody of San Pedro police while charges, including computer related fraud are being readied against them. “I personally commend our police in San Pedro City and the other oper ating units for this successful opera tion. I also commend the personnel of the China Banks as well for their immediate action in coordinating with us which led to the arrest of these suspects,” Ison said. nabbed in Laguna bank fraud case; P1.4M recovered

T he Philippine Genome Center attributed the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in previous weeks to the spread of BA.5.

• Friday, August 12, 2022 A3BusinessMirror The Nation

Senate tightens protocols as 3 senators test positive for Covid

Court affirms FILSCAP’s right over copyrighted music works

T he SC also expressed appre hension that denying FILSCAP’s petition would affect the copyright holder’s market where instead of paying royalties, they may opt to use free radio reception. T he Court said allowing such exceptions to restaurants will also affect other uses in similar estab lishments like malls, department stores, retail stores, lounges and the like, causing a huge economic impact on the music industry in general.Inlight of this, the Court ordered Anrey Inc. to pay FILSCAP P10,000 as temperate damages for the un licensed public performance of the copyrighted songs on FILSCAP’s repertoire and P50,000 as attor ney’s fees, plus interest at the rate of 12 percent per annum from Sep tember 8, 2009 until June 30, 2013 and 6 percent per annum from July 1, 2013 until finality of the Court’s judgment.

T HE Supreme Court has up held the right of the Filipino Society of Composers, Au thors and Publishers Inc. (FILS CAP) to collect license fees and/or royalties over copyrighted works of its member artists played through the use of loudspeakers. I n a decision penned by Justice Rodil V. Zalameda, the Court En Banc reversed and set aside the rul ing issued by the Court of Appeals (CA), which affirmed the decision and order of the Baguio City Re gional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 6 dismissing the amended complaint filed by FILSCAP.

F ILSCAP is a non-profit society of composers, authors, and publish ers that owns public performance rights over copyrighted musical works of its members. It also owns the right to license public perfor mances in the Philippines of copy righted foreign musical works of its members and affiliate performing rights societies abroad. It is deputized to enforce and protect the copyrighted works of its members or affiliates by issuing licenses and collecting royalties and/or license fees from anyone who publicly exhibits or performs music belonging to FILSCAP’s worldwide repertoire. T he case was lodged after a FILS CAP representative found out be tween July and September 2008 that branches of Sizzling Plate Restaurant along Session Road and along Aban don Extension in Baguio City, which were owned by respondent Anrey Inc., played copyrighted music owned by FILSCAP.FILSCAP wrote the restaurants several letters informing them that the unauthorized public perfor mance of copyrighted music amounts to infringement and urging them to secure licenses from FILSCAP to avoid prosecution. FILSCAP eventually filed a com plaint for copyright infringement against Anrey before the RTC. For its defense, Anrey denied play ing any copyrighted music within its establishments and claimed that its establishments played whatever was being broadcasted on the radio they were tuned in. T he trial ruled in favor of the respondent citing Section 184 (i) of Republic Act 8293, or the In tellectual Property Code of the Philippines, which exempts public performances by a club or institu tion for charitable or educational purposes as long as they are not for profit and they do not charge ad mission fees. T he RTC also denied the motion for reconsideration filed by FILSCAP, prompting it to elevate the issue be fore the Court of Appeals. H owever, the CA also af firmed the lower court’s decision and FILSCAP’s subsequent motion forFreconsideration.ILSCAPthenelevated the case before the SC through a peti tion for review. I n ruling in favor of FILS CAP, the SC affirmed the peti tioner’s legal standing to sue for copyright infringement as it is accredited by the IPP to perform the role of a Collective Manage ment Organization and a member of the Paris-based International Confederation of Societies of Au thors and Composers, the umbrel la organization of all composer societies worldwide.

T he Court also declared that the act of playing radio broadcasts containing copyrighted music through the use of broadcast,performancethatonecopyrightedradiofromAnrey’sitself,(radio-over-loudspeakers)loudspeakersis,inaperformance.TheCourtdidnotgiveweighttoargumentthatitis exemptsecuringalicensesincethestationthatbroadcastedthemusicalreadysecuredfromFILSCAP.TheHighTribunalexplainedaradioreceptioncreatesaseparatefromthewhichisotherwise known as the doctrine of multiple performances which provides that a radio (or television) transmission or broadcast can create multiple performances at once. Thus, on whether the reception of a broadcast may be publicly per formed, it is immaterial if the broad casting station has been licensed by the copyright owner because the reception becomes a new public per formance requiring separate protec tion,” the SC explained. Further, the Court held that radio reception transmitted through loud speakers to enhance profit couldn’t be considered “fair use.” Based on the records, the recep tion was transmitted through loud speakers within Anrey’s restaurants. “ While Anrey does not direct ly charge a fee for playing radio broadcasts over its speakers, such reception is clearly done to enhance profit by providing entertainment to the public, particularly its cus tomers, who pay for the dining ex perience in Anrey’s restaurants,” the SC said. T he Court held that the free use by commercial establishments of ra dio broadcast “is beyond the normal exploitation of the copyright holder’s creative work.”

THE government is eyeing to procure new generation vac cines to address emerging subvariants of the severe acute re spiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SAR-CoV-2), which cause novel coro navirus disease (Covid-19), President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. said on Thursday. In his speech during the 15th Philippine National Health Re search System (PNHRS) Week at the Clark Freeport Zone in Pam panga, Marcos stressed the need for the government to continue its evidence-based response against Covid-19 and other future pandemic. A mong the said measures, he said, is providing additional vaccine cov erage to the public. “Here we come again with a new variant of coronavirus that we—of Omicron that now we have to deal with, that you have to genome se quence again, that we have to find a booster so that the people are fully immunized,” Marcos said. L ast Tuesday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 924 new cas es of the Omicron subvariants BA.5, BA.4 and BA2.12.1 in the country.

L alaine Lam, chief executive of ficer and general manager of Avante Agri said a weekly price quotation would be prepared for the products prior to the scheduled deliveries. Since prices for fruits like papaya and banana can go up a dollar or two, we need to agree on a weekly basis,” Lam said.

T he MinDA said the successful signing of the agreement came fol lowing earlier online meetings and discussions between businesses in Davao and some cities in Min danao, with their counterparts in Singapore. MinDA said Bananah & Co. was already looking for poten tial partners in Davao City back in April this year.

T he Brazilian Animal Protein Association (Associação Brasileira de Proteína Animal) or ABPA said there is now an ongoing negotia tion between Brasilia and Manila regarding the accreditation of more foreign meat establishments (FME) in Brazil. A BPA Markets Director Luis Rua said they asked their gov ernment to negotiate with the Philippines to expand the list of accredited Brazilian FMEs to export meat products or seek a system-wide accreditation of Bra zil’s food safety system. We are confident [that it will succeed]. We have proven to the Philippines that we can be a part ner in exporting products that can add value there,” Rua told Filipino reporters here. R ua pointed out that Brazil showed that it is a “reliable” sup plier of meat products to the Phil ippines, especially in the past two years when the latter is in dire need of supply due to African swine fever (ASF) consequences. “At this moment, with the ASF there, Brazil increased its volumes to the Philippines, helping the country to [have] supply and [keep] prices [stable],” he said. T he Philippines extends two types of accreditation to foreign meat exporters: individual accreditation of FMEs and a system-wide accredi tation of a country. A system accreditation means that the Philippines recognizes the exporting country’s food safety sys tem as at par with its very own do mestic system. U nder such accreditation, any exporter or FME recognized and accredited by the exporting coun try could export meat products to theAPhilippines.nindividualaccreditation or an FME-based accreditation allows only specific companies to export meat products to the Philip pines.At present, Brazil does not have a uctslowedaboutippines.aredividualaccreditation;system-wideinsteadinBrazilianFMEsaccreditedbythePhilTodate,thereare54BrazilianFMEsaltoexportmeatprodtothePhilippines.Ruasaidanexpansionof the list of the Brazilian FMEs or a granting of a system-wide accredita tion would allow Brazil to ship a wider range and higher volume of exported meat products to the Philippines. “ The Philippines will have more affordable products because [Phil ippine companies] have more con currence with companies in Brazil. [Philippine companies] will see the best price for imports and this will have an impact on the population,” he Dsaid.espite the exponential increase in Brazilian meat exports, Rua cau tioned that time will come that their shipments to the Philippines may plateau due to the limited number of accredited FMEs. “ Today Brazil can export to the Philippines and most of our exports are mechanically deboned meat [MDM] that helps local industries to make products like sausages, nug gets, and things like that,” he said. But there will be a time that Bra zil’s [exports] cannot increase the volumes anymore because today we have a very limited [number] of es tablishments and slaughterhouses allowed to export to the Philippines,” he added.Ruaalso pointed out that the Philippines should consider mak ing its lower tariffs on pork imports permanent, citing its “benefits” to consumer welfare. At the end, the final consumer will be the one who will gain from this measure [lower tariffs]. Because if not, we are putting some tariffs that probably would [make] costs of importers to be higher,” he said.

CITY—A fruit ex porter here entered into a trading agreement with a Singaporean fruit wholesaler in the first positive results of the invest ment mission mounted by business men here. T he Mindanao Development Au thority (MinDA) said Avante AgriProducts will supply fresh and pro cessed commodities to Bananah & Co. PTE. LTD, a wholesale seller of fruits and vegetables. I nitial products ready for deliv ery soon are fresh pineapples and papaya, but the agreement indicated that shipping would later include other fruits such as fresh bananas, durian, calamansi concentrate, and banana chips. A minimum of one 40-footer container per week for both banana and papaya would be arriving in Sin gapore within two weeks from the signing based on the agreement, said MinDA, which initiated and formed the investment and trade mission to this island state.

DAVAO

Davao

T he agreement was finalized at the sidelines of the Mindanao business mission in Singapore thisWeweek.are looking forward to a productive and efficient supply chain with good quality and rea sonable prices,” said Jason B.Y. Nah, founder and managing partner of Bananah & Co. A side from its successful trad ing agreement with Bananah & Co., Avante Agri was also looking at more areas for farm development and ex pansion in InvestmentsMindanao.likethese can en sure that their volume and quality requirements are met,” Lam added. MinDA Secretary Maria Belen S. Acosta said foreign investors should look at value-adding investments as a priority when linking up with their Mindanao counterparts. We already have the vast lands and the ideal climate in Mindanao. If we pair it up with the right invest ments in infrastructure, processing, and renewable energy, we can scale up our trade and economic activities,” Acosta said. T he business mission in Singa pore is a four-day event to present Mindanao as an ideal investment destination for top global market hubs such as Singapore. It would be the first physical trade mis sion abroad from here since the Covid-19 pandemic. T here would be follow-through activities expected to take place in the near future, according to Tan Teck Lee, country head (Thailand, Malaysia, and Philippines) of the Singapore Business Federation, the MinDA said.

Importation plan EXECUTIVE Secretary Victor D. Rodriguez already ordered the crafting of an importation plan in case the yield from the harvest season will not be sufficient to cover local demand, according to Angeles. “It was a directive actually. It was verbally issued [by Rodriguez] so that the President can make a determination later on, whether or not the importation is actually warranted,” Marcos said. Citing data from the Department of Agriculture (DA), BusinessMirror earlier reported sugar production in crop year 2021 to 2022 is expected to settle only at 1.8 million MT--the lowest in 22 years. T he already existing shortfall in local sugar supply has already caused the price of the sweetner to rise. As of August 5, 2022, the SRA price monitoring showed the price of sugar in Metro Manila supermarkets was at P93.01 per kilogram, while those being sold in public markets in the region was at P95 per kilogram. T he price of refined sugar in Metro Manila was even higher, reaching P115 per kilogram in supermarkets and P100 per kilogram in public markets. V. Vitug By Manuel T. Cayon Mindanao@awimailboxBureauChief

export

Singapore firm ‘Heads may roll’ in recalled sugar imports fiasco–Palace continued from a18

inks

Brazil urges PHL to expand FME list to increase volume of meat exports City company fruit deal with

She claimed the government already imported sugar in May to help address the local sugar supply concerns. We just imported last May. Now, we have to determine if an importation, supposedly to address the critical levels that are approaching at the end of the month, will affect the harvest season which opens in September,” Angeles said. However, latest SRA data showed that as of end-July 172,016.9 MT of refined sugar or about 86 percent of the 200,000-MT importation program under Sugar Order (SO) 3 has arrived in theScountry.O3,which was approved in February, is currently the only import program for sugar this year. SRA data also showed that 45,680 MT of the imported refined sugar has been consumed locally.

S erafica, who is also the SRA administrator, earlier told the BusinessMirror that the SRA board approved last August 2 the reclassification of some 62,826.6 MT of imported refined sugar from “C” or reserved sugar into “B” or domestic sugar.

A4 BusinessMirror www.businessmirror.com.ph Economy Friday, August 12, 2022 • Editor: Vittorio

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas SÃO PAULO, Brazil—Brazilian meat exporters are urging Ma nila to accredit more meat es tablishments in the Latin American country to increase their volume of shipments to the Philippines.

If you lower the tariffs, of course, you will lower the price at the end for the population,” he added. Rua earlier said that Brazil would export a record volume of chicken meat and pork to the Philippines this year driven by higher demand. In the first half of 2022, Brazil’s pork exports to the Philippines rose by 277.7 percent to 41,863 metric tons (MT) from 11,083 MT in the same period of last year, based on ABPA data. A BPA data showed that Brazil’s pork exports to the Philippines from January to June already surpassed its total pork exports for the entire 2021 of 33,347 MT. Meanwhile, Brazil’s chicken meat exports to the Philippines in the first half rose by 43.7 percent yearon-year to 116,804 MT from 81,259 MT, based on ABPA data. For sure,” ABPA Market Direc tor Luis Rua told Filipino reporters here, when asked if Brazil’s chicken meat exports to the Philippines this year would surpass last year’s fullyear volume. “ I believe in the next months, we will keep the same quantities [of pork exports to the Philippines]. And of course it will depend if we are ready to offer the products that you want. You can just count on us,” Rua added. A BPA attributed the increase in Brazil’s chicken meat and pork exports to the strong demand for MDM by Philippine meat proces sors and the country’s need for pork products amid the conse quences of ASF.

A BusinessMirror Special Feature Friday, August 12, 2022 A5www.businessmirror.com.ph Top Corporate Foundation

Today’s consumers demand that companies change the way they do business. They need to be more transparent and should take an active role in addressing social, cultural and environmental issues. Thus, businesses that ignore corporate social responsibility run the risk of affecting their bottom line and their brand. Having a bad reputation socially and environ mentally can create serious nega tive effects on the overall profit ability and success of a company. Nowadays consumers want to spend their money on products and services that they believe in and engage with companies that follow ethical practices that meet their own beliefs. Corporate Social Responsibilityvs. philanthropy CSR is viewed as different from philanthropy. When properly im plemented, it should become in grained in the values and culture of a company, and positively affect the way the company does business. CSR should become inherent in the mission and message of an organi zation, and hold a strong place in marketing and advertising. According to a published re port of Ohio University, compa nies should be aware that promot ing their CSR model only benefits the company if they are already acting on their plan. Otherwise, falsely claiming to bring social change to those in need could lead to bad publicity. Employee engagement is also tied to a company’s CSR reputation. A recent Deloitte survey found that 70 percent of millennials acknowl edged that a company’s commit ment to social responsibility influ enced their choice to work there. Deloitte, an international pro fessional services network head quartered in London, acknowledg es the millennials to be the largest generational segment of the work force. It said that companies look ing to hire these workers will need to embrace CSR in order to attract and retain talent. Millennials do not just want to consume prod ucts and services made by com panies that have a CSR presence; they want to take part in making these social and environmental changes also. In the country, the League of Corporate Foundations, a network of operating and grant-making cor porate foundations and corpora tions, promotes and enhances the strategic practice of CSR among its members and the larger business community, toward sustained na tional development. Collectively, LCF represents many decades of private sec tor involvement strengthened by public sector partnerships and multi-sectoral approaches in various development sec tors including arts and culture, education, environment, health, enterprise development, CSR re search, and training. CSR and the world’s health pandemic Most recently, the health, econom ic, and social consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (Covid-19) have highlighted the need for collabora tion among all agents to face a sce nario the world has not before seen. Elsewhere in the world and in the Philippines, various firms have shown a great commitment to society, developing actions that alleviate the consequences of the pandemic pro tecting the interests of shareholders and investors as well as favoring the well-being of society in general and the vulnerable groups in particular. The crisis resulting from the pandemic has caused a change in the way that corporations pursue their economic, social, and envi ronmental objectives, giving great er importance to the role they must play in society. In this new scenario, firms ad opted their CSR strategies in order to establish a business commitment to society and vulnerable groups, es pecially those closest to them, which is the local environment associated with the origin of the firms or com munities in which they operate and have a greater presence. Corporate social responsibility is more than just a business trend or fad. Businesses that want to stay relevant to new generations and who want to help people in need around the world while increasing their own revenue and efficiency will benefit from embracing CSR.

Corporate social responsibility matters in post-pandemic survival

By Leony R. Garcia IN recent years, more and more businesses have engaged in active corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. These corporations are doing so by looking at the way they operate so that they can effectively address cultural and social issues, with the aim of benefiting both their businesses and the consumers in the process.

CEBUANA Lhuillier Foundation, in partnership with the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) recently mobilized donations to earth quake victims of Manabo and Dolores, Abra. The response team and volunteers handed out clean drinking water and ready-to-eat meals and benefited 600 families. CEBUANA LHUILLIER FOUNDATION FB PAGE.

BusinessMirrorA6 www.businessmirror.com.phFriday, August 12, 2022

BusinessMirror A7www.businessmirror.com.ph Friday, August 12, 2022

BusinessMirrorA6 www.businessmirror.com.phFriday, August 12, 2022

BusinessMirror A9www.businessmirror.com.ph Friday, August 12, 2022

ANOC99 CORPORATION 5/f To 10/f Ayala Malls Manila Bay Building D., Macapagal Blvd. Cor. Aseana Street, Tambo, City Of Parañaque8.LYU, NING Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Managing incoming calls and customer service inquires Basic Qualification: Able to Speak, Read and Write Chinese Language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Salary Range: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999 BOUYGUES TRAVAUX PUBLICS PHILIPPINES, INC. U-708, 7/f, 3/f Tower One & Exchange Plaza, Ayala Ave., Bel-air, City Of Makati 21. STRIKA, PresidentDRASKOAndDirector Brief Job Description: Establish and carry out organizational or departmental procedures, goals and policies

27. LIU, YAN Mandarin Speaking Financial Analyst Brief Job Description: Provide analytical forecasting reporting and project support to senior management

12. PARK, JAEHYUNG Korean Language - Officer Support Brief Job Description: Assist in planning and administration of the organization’s daily operation.

9. HA VI LUAN Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Managing incoming calls and customer service inquires Basic Qualification: Able to Speak, Read and Write Chinese Language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 BIGCAT SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS, INC. 18/f Pbcom Tower, 6795 Ayala Avenue Cor. Rufino Street, Salcedo Vill., Bel-air, City Of Makati

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin business manager, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: College graduate, at least 20 years experience Salary Range: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999 CASPO INCORPORATED 43/f, 45/f, 49/f Pbcom Tower, 6795 Ayala Avenue Corner V.a. Rufino Street, Bel-air, City Of Makati

31. WU, XUEFENG Mandarin Deputy Project Supervisor Brief Job Description: The mandarin deputy project supervisor will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long-term goals.

Basic Qualification: Degree holder, must be fluently speak and write Vietnamese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

30. SU, XINGHONG Mandarin Business Senior Staff Brief Job Description: The mandarin business senior staff will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long-term goals.

CHINA COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES PHILIPPINES CORPORATION 21st Floor Menarco Tower, 32nd Street, Bonifacio Global City, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig

Basic Qualification: Degree holder, must be fluently speak and write Vietnamese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Has extensive experience and good working knowledge in operational procedures and policies; is proficient and able to communicate in mandarin or any Chinese language. Salary Range: Php 90,000 - Php 149,999

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

23. NIKKI VALENTINE Operation Analyst Brief Job ProvidingDescription:analyticaljob in actual business operation for the company and its worldwide clients.

25. WUNNIE Operation Analyst Brief Job ProvidingDescription:analyticaljob in actual business operation for the company and its worldwide clients.

Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

Basic Qualification: • Excellent oral and written communication both in English and Mandarin Chinese; strong public speaking skills Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 CHINA HARBOUR ENGINEERING COMPANY 5/f Section E Ramon Magsaysay Center, 1680 Roxas Blvd., 076, Barangay 699, Malate, City Of Manila

Basic Qualification: • Excellent oral and written communication both in English and Mandarin Chinese; strong public speaking skills Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic 1-yearQualification:collectionsor accounts receivable experience in an international environment. Strong social skills both written and oral with very good telephone skills ability to work on own initiative as well as n as part of a team. Excellent organizational & time management abilities.

7. TROUSSAUT, PIERRICK DOMINIQUE SW/App/Cloud Tech Support Analyst Brief Job Description: The position will require candidates to take calls using any of the 6 languages to support our clients with their it-related incident and requests.

29. LIU, MandarinTAO Business Manager Brief Job Description: The mandarin business manager will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long-term goals.

Basic MinimumQualification:10-yearrelevant experience in dry and wet sand fill in an International Dredging and Land Reclamation company. Salary Range: Php 90,000 - Php 149,999 20. TROMP, BASTIAAN CORNELIS PIETER Superintendent Brief Job ManagersDescription:andsupervises the execution of a part of the project, according to the contract in a safe, timely, qualitatively optimal and cost-efficient manner.

Basic Qualification: Graduate of any 4yr course, preferably it or engineering related. Strong working knowledge of the service desk function. Good knowledge level on multiple IT technologies.

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin field service coordinator, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science or any relevant fields; must be able to communicate effectively, verbally and written, in both English and required language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Brief Job CommunicateDescription:withthe client functional design in-charge about the detail of requirement definition and function design. Explain development status and issue with the team leads of the client.

5. NGUIFFO, DIDIER MARTIAL SW/App/Cloud Tech Support Analyst

6. TALLA, LEONID SW/App/CloudCELESTETechSupport Analyst Brief Job Description: The position will require candidates to take calls using any of the 6 languages to support our clients with their it-related incident and requests.

4. MBOMBO, DIDIER MOKEMBA Order To Cash Operations Analyst Brief Job Description: Provides training and mentoring new starters as well as retaining / coaching of existing team members as required. Takes ownership of small projects and delivers outstanding results on time is pro-active in raising dispute information to a high standard as required in accordance with established policy ensures weekly/ monthly collections targets are achieved, flagging possible problems early to the team leader.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin deputy project supervisor, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin business senior staff, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan.

3. NGUYEN THI THU HA App/cloud Support Senior Analyst Brief Job CommunicateDescription:withthe client functional design in-charge about the detail of requirement definition and function design. Explain development status and issue with the team leads of the client. Basic Qualification: Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science or other relevant fields; must be able to communicate effectively, verbally and written, in both English and required language; experience java script O SAP O. Net o COBOL o angular; knowledgeable in back-end programming language/ framework; willing to work on holidays, weekends, shifting schedules and extended working hours. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

11. STEPHEN WARTONO Bahasa Indonesian Language - Supervisor Support Brief Job Description: Maintaining and enhancing website by adding and improving design and interactive features.

2. YEHSIFUAH MBUYE, SUBIRUS App/cloud Support Analyst

Basic FluentQualification:andproficient in writing and speaking at least two of the following languages: English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, Bahasa, Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesian, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese/ 1 year experience of working in a similar role Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

CISCO TECHNOLOGIES PHILIPPINES, INC. 2608-t 26th Floor, Sm Aura Tower, 26th Street Corner Mckinley Parkway, Bonifacio Global City, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig

15. NGUYEN VAN TUNG Vietnamese Language - Officer Marketing Brief Job Description: Cater specific promotions for affiliates.

CHROMELAB TECHNOLOGIES INC. 25/f Techzone Bldg., 213 Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., San Antonio, City Of Makati 34. LUC TU NHI Bi-lingual Speaking Data Analyst Executive Brief Job InterpretsDescription:data,analyzes results using statistical techniques and provides ongoing reports

24. RUDY OKTANIUS Operation Analyst Brief Job ProvidingDescription:analyticaljob in actual business operation for the company and its worldwide clients.

BIGPAT TRES DEVELOPMENT HOLDINGS INC. Unit No. 405 1f, Virginia St., Zone 13, District 2, Barangay 130, Pasay City 17. DE NICOLAS CABANAS, CARLOS Chief Project Manager Brief Job Description: The Chief Project Manager has responsibility to manage all projects that flow and ensures that project scope, plans and timelines, budgets, and project resources are allocated effectively

Basic Qualification: Has extensive experience and good working knowledge in operational procedures and policies; is proficient and able to communicate in mandarin or any Chinese language.

35. NG KEM HO Bi-lingual Speaking Data Analyst Officer Brief Job InterpretsDescription:data,analyzes results using statistical techniques and provides ongoing reports

Basic FluentQualification:andproficient in writing and speaking at least 2 of the ff languages: English, mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

Brief Job Description: The position will require candidates to take calls using any of the 6 languages to support our clients with their it-related incident and requests.

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No. NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No. NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE BusinessMirrorA6 www.businessmirror.com.phA10 Friday, August 12, 2022 ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No. NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE ACCENTURE, INC. 7f, Robinsons Cybergate Tower 1, Pioneer St, City Of Mandaluyong

Basic Qualification: Graduate of any 4yr course, preferably it or engineering related. Strong working knowledge of the service desk function. Good knowledge level on multiple IT technologies. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Minimum 3 years extensive work experience with an international dredging company.

1. MBONYINGABO KARUTA, CHRISTIAN App/cloud Support Analyst

26. LI, LI Mandarin Speaking Financial Analyst Brief Job Description: Provide analytical forecasting reporting and project support to senior management

Basic Qualification: Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science or other relevant fields; must be able to communicate effectively, verbally and written, in both English and required language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

22. BENNY YANTO Operation Analyst Brief Job ProvidingDescription:analyticaljob in actual business operation for the company and its worldwide clients.

Basic Qualification: • Excellent oral and written communication both in English and Mandarin Chinese; strong public speaking skills Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

14. NGUYEN PHUONG TU Vietnamese Language - Officer Marketing Brief Job Description: Cater specific promotions for affiliates.

32. WU, MandarinRUIQINGElectrical Commissioning Supervisor Brief Job Description: The mandarin electrical commissioning supervisor will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long-term goals.

Basic Qualification: Must Possess at least Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial ManagementEngineering,Engineering, Business, or a Related Field; Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 BOSKALIS PHILIPPINES INC. Unit 3701, 3801 The Orient Square, F. Ortigas Jr. Road, Ortigas Center, San Antonio, City Of Pasig 18. KATHIRVELU, THIRUGNANAGANAPATHY Heavy Equipment Operator Specialist Brief Job Description: Responsible to operate electrically and /or hydraulically powered company specific equipment in a safe and efficient manner.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin commissioningelectricalsupervisor, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic MinimumQualification:10-yearrelevant experience in dry and wet sand fill in an International Dredging and Land Reclamation company. Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999 19. MOHAMMED ABDUL KHADAR, FAKRUDEEN Heavy Equipment Operator Specialist Brief Job Description: Responsible to operate electrically and /or hydraulically powered company specific equipment in a safe and efficient manner.

Basic FluentlyQualification:speakand write in Vietnamese language to cater foreign market.

33. YANG, MandarinKUNField Service Coordinator Brief Job Description: The mandarin field service coordinator will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long-term goals.

Basic FluentlyQualification:speakand write in Vietnamese language to cater foreign market. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

16. TRAN MINH TU Vietnamese Language - Officer Marketing Brief Job Description: Cater specific promotions for affiliates.

10. ANGGI JASICA KALALO Bahasa Indonesian Language - Officer Support Brief Job Description: Assist in planning and administration of the organization’s daily operation.

Basic FluentlyQualification:speakand write Bahasa Indonesian language to cater foreign market. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic speakDegreeQualification:holder,fluentlyandwriteVietnamese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

13. ZHOU, JIA Mandarin Language - Officer Support Brief Job Description: Assist in planning and administration of the organization’s daily operation.

Basic FluentlyQualification:speakand write in Vietnamese language to cater foreign market. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

28. ZENG, YICAN Mandarin Speaking Senior Project Manager Brief Job Description: Create planning schedule

36. NURENDRA M SENATHIRAJAH Director, Customer Delivery Brief Job Description: Work with service provider (sp) customers to unlock the potential of 5g and next generation sp technologies; as a technologist, you will be across our solutions as well as the market trends and competitive offerings; lead a team that defines and develops cutting edge sp solutions and leads a team delivering life cycle professional services; work with sales to help define the customer strategy and influence customer decision-making; interlock with our engineering teams to help advise on the development direction of products; engage with the product management teams on services portfolio evolution; continue to build the 5g practice capabilities.

CLOVERSENSE TECHNOLOGY INC. 29/f Robinsons Summit Center, 6783 Ayala Center, Bel-air, City Of Makati

Basic Qualification: A self-starter, able to structure, prioritize and get results in the midst of constant change; comfortable in managing complex client dynamics and are capable of aligning your team around a common set of objectives resulting in an ability to deliver superior results; must have a mix of sp architecture and consulting skills and can explain sp business concepts and business implications at executive level; Salary Range: Php 500,000 and above

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

JIU ZHOU TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL, INC. 25/f Robinsons Summit, Jg Summit Center, Ayala Ave., Bel-air, City Of Makati

70. CHEN, PO-NAN Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

37. ZHONG, ZIXIANG Data Analyst - Mandarin Speaking I Brief Job Description: Good in statistic or probability Basic Qualification: Must Have Good Analytical Skills, Excellent in Writing, Reading and Speaking Thai and English Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 COMIT TELECOM PHILIPPINES INC. 19/floor Marco Polo Office Tower, Sapphire Road, Ortigas Center, San Antonio, City Of Pasig

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin information system analyst familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan.

Basic readingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritingin English and their respective Native Language for the position applied for; Fluent in Chinese Mandarin is an advantage Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

65. LIU, XIAOLEI Mandarin Operating System Supervisor Brief Job Description: The mandarin operating system supervisor will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

72. FU, YEN-WEN Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services

Brief Job Description: Provides direction and operational leadership of the compensation function for leaders and team members, ensures that the compensation processes, plans, programs, and tools are competitive, cost-effective, support the business strategies, enhance organizational capability, and support the mission and vision.

75. HUNG, CHIH-WEI Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin graphic and web developer, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

39. SAEED ABDULLA MIRAN MOHAMMAD Country Manager Brief Job ImplementDescription:strategies for commercial and operational activities. Basic Qualification: University degree; at least a years of multi-functionaltrackexperiencecommercialwithaprovenrecordofmanagingteams; proven ability to take on a leadership role, proficient public speaking skills. Salary Range: Php 500,000 and above ENGIE IMPACT PHILIPPINES, INC. 26/f Gt Tower Int’l, 6813 Ayala Ave. Cor. H.v. Dela Costa, Bel-air, City Of Makati

45. LI, ZERAN Compensation Performance Supervisor

41.

47. NING, CHANGSONG Fleet Manager Brief Job Managing,Description:coordinating and supervising the programs for acquisition and maintenance of fleet vehicles.

50. LIAO, ChineseKUAN-HAOCustomer Service Representative

Brief Job Description: The mandarin operating system supervisor will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

GEDI CONSTRUCTION DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION Unit A&b 20/f Rufino Pacific Tower, 6784 Ayala Ave. Cor. V.a. Rufino St., San Lorenzo, City Of Makati 56. LI, MandarinKUNJINGAdmin Manager Brief Job Description: The mandarin admin manager will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long-term goals.

Basic readingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritingin English and their respective native language for the position applied for. Fluent to Chinese Mandarin is an advantage. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

58. PUROHIT, RAJINDER MOHAN Lead Project Management Specialist – Generator Supervisor Brief Job ResponsibleDescription:foractivities related to the mechanical erection and installation of equipment and plant scope one project. May lead others directly or indirectly and/or sponsor subcontractors.

Basic readingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritingin English and their respective native language for the position applied for, Fluent in Chinese Mandarin is an advantage.

Basic Qualification: 5-10 years’ work experience in supervisory position, job-relevant degree, multilingual. Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

Brief Job DevelopsDescription:newgoodsfor use by the public or special interest groups that include development along with market and testing.

GENERAL ELECTRIC PHILIPPINES, INC. 12th Floor Ore Central Tower, 9th Ave. Corner 31st St.bonifacio Global City,, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig 57. NAGARAJAN, DHANASEKAR Lead Project Management Specialist - Bop Electrical (LV & MV) Commissioning Brief Job SuperviseDescription:installation, testing and commissioning of balance of plant-electrical packages located at Angat hydro power plant. Basic Qualification: Advanced experience in the project management and commissioning. Knowledge level is comparable to bachelor’s degree from an accredited university or college (or a high school diploma with relevant experience).

BusinessMirror A11www.businessmirror.com.ph Friday, August 12, 2022

Basic Qualification: College graduate, speaks and write fluently (Korean, English and Mandarin) Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

61. JIA, HOUYA Mandarin Information System Analyst Brief Job Description: The mandarin information system analyst will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

43. TIE, LIJUAN Customer Service Representative Brief Job CustomerDescription:servicerepresentative

INNOVATIAL INC. 32a Rufino Pacific Tower, 6784 Ayala Ave. Cor V.a Rufino St., San Lorenzo, City Of Makati 68. ZHAO, FENG Chinese Language Operations Manager

71. CHU, YUN-YING Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Basic readingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritingin English and their respective native language for the position applied for, Fluent n Chinese Mandarin is an advantage. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin admin manager, excellent communication, interpersonal and presentation skills.

Basic readingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritingin English and their respective native language for the position applied for, Fluent in Chinese Mandarin is an advantage. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

63. SHIU, WEI-CHENG Mandarin Information System Analyst Brief Job Description: The mandarin information system analyst will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No. NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No. NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE

J-NA ALLOUT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CORP. 3/f Lipams Bldg., #48 President Avenue, B. F. Homes, City Of Parañaque

74. HUNG, CHIA-PAO Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services

Basic Qualification: 5-10 years’ work experience in supervisory position, job-relevant degree, multilingual. Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

Customer

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Representative Brief Job CustomerDescription:servicerepresentative

Basic Qualification: High School Graduate in Chinese Curriculum, Can Speak and Write Fluent Chinese Mandarin, Can Operate Computer Mandarin Characters Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

53. NGU MY NHI Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

55. TRAN BAO VietnameseVANCustomer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No. NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin operating system supervisor, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. Demonstrable experience in developing strategic business plan.

49. LI, SHANG-PING a.k.a. LI, MING-FONG Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as Mandarin Senior Sales Manager, excellent communication, interpersonal and presentation skills.

46. CHENG, XUEJING Flash Learning & Development Manager

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

60. HE, ZHIXIN Mandarin Information System Analyst Brief Job Description: The mandarin information system analyst will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

Basic Qualification: Advanced experience in the construction & commissioning of hydropower project especially in refurbishment and renovation of hydro project. Strong knowledge requires for stator & rotor assembly & installation. Established project management skills. Salary Range: Php 90,000 - Php 149,999 HECTECHURE CORP. Units A&b 20/f Rufino Pacific Tower, 6784 Ayala Ave. Cor. V.a. Rufino St., San Lorenzo, City Of Makati

Brief Job DetermineDescription:staffingrequirements and interview, hire and train new employees.

77. LIU, SHANG-JUI a.k.a. LIU, YU-LUN Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services

Basic Qualification: High School Graduate in Chinese Curriculum, Can Speak and Write Fluent Chinese Mandarin, Can Operate Computer Mandarin Characters Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 42. LI, ZHIJUN Customer Service Representative Brief Job

FLASH EXPRESS SOFTWARE (PH) CO., LTD. INC. 11/f Cybersigma, Lawton Ave., Mckinley West, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig

48. FENG, SHUANG Network Qc Officer Brief Job DevelopsDescription:theexisting quality management system as necessary with additional procedures/work instructions. Ensure improvements are implemented and results feedback to employees.

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

76. LIN, TZU-JUNG Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

62. MA, XINGXING Mandarin Information System Analyst Brief Job Description: The mandarin information system analyst will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

73. HUANG, SHIH-FENG Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

38. PHAN QUANG DUY It Specialist Brief Job Description: Installing new software and hardware components Basic Qualification: 2 years experience, proficient on windows 10 Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 EMIRATES 18/f Pacific Star Bldg., Sen. Gil J. Puyat Ave. Cor. Makati Ave., Bel-air, City Of Makati

67. LIU, MandarinLIN Senior Sales Manager Brief Job Description: The Mandarin Senior Sales Manager will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

Basic Bachelor’sQualification:degreein Electrical and Mechanical engineering. Salary Range: Php 90,000 - Php 149,999 FAREAST OUTSOURCE PROCESSING INC. 7th, 8th, 9th Flr. Nu Tower, Moa Coral Way, Barangay 76, Pasay City GOH CHONG SENG Service

69. CHO, BAE KWAN Korean Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Track main industry trends in Korean through blogs, micro blogs and forums

66. MA, LIANJIE Mandarin Operating System Supervisor Brief Job Description: The mandarin operating system supervisor will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

Basic Qualification: High School Graduate in Chinese Curriculum, Can Speak and Write Fluent Chinese Mandarin, Can Operate Computer Mandarin Characters Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic readingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritingin English and their respective native language for the position applied for, Fluent in Chinese Mandarin is an advantage.

54. NGUYEN VAN CUONG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

51. DUONG CHAN NGHIA Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

CustomerDescription:servicerepresentative

59. WU, MandarinBO-CHANGGraphic And Web Developer Brief Job Description: The mandarin graphic and web developer will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

52. LE THI TUONG VI Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Brief Job Description: Act as the main point of contact for the UK based team taking on tasks and leading the team in the Manila office to complete these tasks.

Basic Qualification: 5-10 years’ work experience in supervisory position, job-relevant degree, multilingual. Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999 GAO SHOU TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT, INC. 52/f Pbcom Tower, 6795 Ayala Ave. Cor. V.a. Rufino St., Bel-air, City Of Makati

Salary Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

Basic readingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritingin

English and their respective native language for the position applied for, Fluent in Chinese Mandarin is an advantage.

44. HAN, YANG Compensation Performance Supervisor

64. JIA, HOUXUN Mandarin Operating System Supervisor

Basic Qualification: College graduate at least 18 years old and can speak Chinese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 HMN PHILS. INC. U-a&b 20f Rufino Pacific Tower, 6754 Ayala Ave. Cor. V. A. Rufino St., San Lorenzo, City Of Makati

Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

40. FOSTER, CHRISTOPHER WILLIAM THOMAS Project Manager

Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

and customer service inquires. Basic Qualification:

MICROSOURCING PHILIPPINES INC. 6f 1880 Building, Eastwood City Cyberpark, Bagumbayan, Quezon City 91. CIRILLO NARELLE ELIZABETH General Manager BPO Brief Job Description: Assumes full functional responsibility and accountability for the performance, both financially of the client’s operation and provides visible leadership and direction to ensure operational effectiveness and efficiency are maintained and key deliverables are met.

Any person in the Philippines who is competent, able and willing to perform the services for which the foreign national is desired may file an objection at DOLE National Capital Region located at DOLE-NCR Building, 967 Maligaya St., Malate Manila, within 30 days after this Pleasepublication.inform DOLE National Capital Region if you have any information on criminal offense committed by the foreign nationals.

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

MOA CLOUDZONE CORP. 4th-11th Flr. Nexgen Tower, C4 Rd. Edsa Ext., Barangay 76, Pasay City 92. CHANG, QIN Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquires.

86. NGUYEN MANH HAO Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

82. HOW WEI SEAN Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic SalaryskillsExcellentstandaloneExperienceBachelor’sQualification:degree.in4garchitecture.communicationandanalyticalskills.Range: Php 90,000 - Php 149,999 OPTIMUS SYSTEM SOLUTIONS INC. 8/f Alphaland Makati Tower 3, 7232 Ayala Ave. Extn. Cor. Malugay St., Bel-air, City Of Makati 109. CYNTHIA YUNUS Indonesian Accounts Leader Brief Job KnowledgeableDescription:incomputer skills including common business applicants

Basic Qualification: Any nationality who can speak and write mandarin SalaryfluentlyRange: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999

Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

88. TAN VAN THINH Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Basic Salary(VerbalFluentQualification:inVietnameseandWrittenSkills)Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 TECHNOPAQ INC. 254, Benito Soliven Ave., Manggahan, City Of Pasig 115. AGRAWAL, HARI MOHAN General Manager Brief Job Description: General Management of sales teams on various products

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin quality inspector, Salarystrategicexperiencecompany.heavyonknowledgefamiliarity,andawarenessmachineryandequipmentusebyDemonstrableindevelopingbusinessplan.Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 *Date Generated: Aug 11, 2022

85. LUONG TRUNG GIANG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services

Basic Salaryyears.experience:diplomaEducationalQualification:background:offinancialservicesmorethan10Range: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999

Basic SalaryCollegeQualification:GraduateRange: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999

90. TRINH VAN TAN Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

102. NGO NGOC VietnameseVINHCustomer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquires.

Basic SalaryrequiredandTrainingQualification:skill,experiencemasteryofthejobasbyhisposition.Range: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999

Basic PreferablyQualification:with5years experiences as masters, preferably with 5 years experience as maritime training consultancy with extensive experience, knowledge to develop and optimized organization staff seafarers development and training SalaryprogramRange: Php 150,000 - Php 499,999 XINCHUAN INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PHILIPPINE PROJECT LTD CORP. 16/f Tower 6789, 6789 Ayala Ave., Bel-air, City Of Makati

WSP MARITIME TRAINING CENTER INC. Unit 1701,1710 & 1802 Prestige Tower, Don F. Ortigas Jr. Road, Ortigas Center, San Antonio, City Of Pasig 120. CASTELLINO, ALBAN CELESTINE Consultant Maritime Training Brief Job Description: Can evaluate existing training program align training programs with business objectives and facilitate learning opportunities for various audiences can also create course materials and teaching aids for course module can develop training course can develop continues assessment programs for officers & and ratings.

ESTABLISHMENT / ADDRESS No. NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL , POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE

81. HSU, WEI-TING Chinese Technical Support Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

89. TON NU KIM PHUONG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Basic Qualification: Any nationality who can speak and write mandarin SalaryfluentlyRange: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

WANFANG TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT, INC. 6-9/f Tower 2 Double Dragon Plaza, Edsa Cor. Macapagal Ave., Barangay 76, Pasay City 118. DINH NGOC HIEP Vietnamese Customer Service Representative

87. PHAN MINH LAP Vietnamese Customer Service Representative

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

80. CHIANG, HUNG-YING Chinese Technical Support Representative

111. GIANG HAI DAO Vietnamese Analytical Officer Brief Job KnowledgeableDescription:incomputer skills including common business applicants

Basic Qualification: at least 19 y/old, ability to speak write and communicate in Taiwanese Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 98. POH WEI KIAN Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquiries

inquiries

106. VU VAN VietnameseHUNGCustomer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls Able Php 30,000 Php Proven experience as Mandarin Technical Works SalarypresentationinterpersonalexcellentSupervisor,communication,andskills.Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 NOKIA SOLUTIONS AND NETWORKS PHILIPPINES, INC. 18/f The Curve Bldg., 32nd St. Cor. 3rd Ave., Bonifacio Global City, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig 108. SOE ZARNI Solution Designer Brief Job ResponsibleDescription:forNokia Core Network solution for Clients.

Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 94. WU, ChineseHUAIFUCustomer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquires.

Basic SalarylanguageandChinesereadingProficientQualification:inspeaking,andwritinginMandarin,EnglishtheirrespectivenativeRange: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

SOMI UNLIMITED SOLUTIONS, INC. 10/f Tower 2 Double Dragon Plaza Bldg., Edsa Corner Macapagal Ave. St. Zone 10, District 1, Barangay 76, Pasay City 113. HA THI THANH XUYEN Admin Officer Brief Job Description: Handles administrative request and queries from senior managers/officers Basic Salary(VerbalFluentQualification:inVietnameseandWrittenSkills)Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 114. LAM NGOC THUY Admin Officer Brief Job Description:

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

121. CAO, ZHONGQIANG Mandarin Field Service Supervisor Brief Job Description: The mandarin field service supervisor will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

Basic Qualification: Proven experience as mandarin field service supervisor, familiarity, knowledge and awareness on machinery and heavy equipment use by company. SalarystrategicexperienceDemonstrableindevelopingbusinessplan.Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

BusinessMirrorA6 www.businessmirror.com.phA12 Friday, August 12, 2022

to speak, read, and write Chinese language. Salary Range:

105. TRUONG XUAN MINH Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquires.

97. MALVIN CHOW JET LOON Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquiries

84. KIEU CONG MINH Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

59,999 NEPC POWER CONSTRUCTION CORP. 15/f Cyber One Bldg., Eastwood Cyberpark City, Bagumbayan, Quezon City 107. YU, ZHENGHANG Mandarin Technical Works Supervisor Brief Job Description: The Mandarin Technical Works Supervisor will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals. Basic Qualification:

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

110. KAU YON SHENG Malaysian Accounts Manager Brief Job Description: Manage staff and subordinates, make effective report, presentation on operational topics to management

Basic SalarymandarinmarketingBachelorQualification:degreeinmanagement,speaking.Range: Php 60,000 - Php 89,999 Handles administrative request and queries from senior managers/officers

TIAN XIA TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL, INC. 6/f Filinvest Cyberzone Bldg. B, Superblock A Central Business Park 1 Bay City St., Barangay 76, Pasay City 116. WU, NIEN-YUN Chinese Marketing Specialist Brief Job Description: Conduct market research to find answer about computer requirements, habits and trends

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 93. WANG, ChineseXIAONANCustomer Service Representative

Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquires

PH GLOBAL JET EXPRESS INC. 11th Floor, The Marajo Tower, 26th Street Cor. 4th Avenue Bgc, Fort Bonifacio, City Of Taguig

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language. Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

104. PHAM THI VietnameseBONGCustomer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquiries

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 100. STEVEN CHONG JIEW WAN Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service

Basic Qualification: Have interfacemanagementexperiencesubstantialinpersonnelandclientsfordevelopment of business Salary Range: Php 90,000 - Php 149,999

TRICOG HEALTH CORP. 21/f 8 Rockwell Bldg.,, Hidalgo Drive, Rockwell Center, Poblacion, City Of Makati 117. SUKHBIR SINGH General Manager Brief Job Description: Own the P/L for the Philippines and Malaysia. Continuously assess the progress of the business with respect to customers employees and financials.

83. DO DUC HIEU Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

122. LIU, JIANJIAO Mandarin Quality Inspector Brief Job Description: The mandarin quality inspector will be a strategist and a leader able to steer the company to the most profitable direction while also implementing its vision, mission and long term goals.

78. YANG, JIA-ROU Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

99. SEE LIAN KAI Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquiries

101. YONG KIE SOON Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquiries

95. HII HOCK CHIONG Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquiries

103. NGUYEN THI THU HANG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquires.

WEAVENET INT’L., INC. Unit 1604 The Centerpoint Condo., Julia Vargas Corner Garnet Road, Ortigas Center, San Antonio, City Of Pasig 119. JUNG, TAESUNG Project Manager Brief Job CoordinatingDescription:withcross-discipline team members to make sure that all parties are on track with project requirements, deadlines and schedules

Basic Qualification: Any nationality who can speak and write mandarin SalaryfluentlyRange: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

112. HE, SONG Mandarin Sales And Marketing Specialist Brief Job Description: Monitor the day-to-day sales and marketing within the company, such as market data on a local, regional or national level, by build sustainable relationships and trust with customer account through open and interactive communication through the use mandarin native language.

79. CHI, YA-CHUAN Chinese Technical Support Representative Brief Job Description: Attracts potential customers by answering product and service questions; suggesting information about other products and services.

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read, and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999 96. KYKY LING SIN JIE Malaysian Customer Service Representative Brief Job ManagingDescription:incomingcalls and customer service inquiries

VY THI QUYNH Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999 19 PLO SCHOOL OF GLOBAL, INC. 2nd Floor, Linsan Bldg., Aguinaldo Highway, San Vicente II, Silang, Cavite

Friday, August 12, 2022BusinessMirror A13www.businessmirror.com.ph

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

2 HYS METAL PLASTIC AND (PHILIPPINES)ELECTRONICSINC. Amplefield SME Park, J.P. Rizal Ave., LTC, Bugtong na Pulo, City of Lipa, Batangas LI, GUOXIN Production Engineering Consultant Brief Job Description: Use engineering methods to manage product issues in meeting business objectives Basic Qualification: With experience in manufacturing company and with technical skills Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

10 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite LIAO, YONGSHUN Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

3 LEADING SUCCESS (PHILS.) GARMENTS INC. Bldg. 1, 2 & 3, GMBP, Maduya, Carmona, Cavite CHAN, KAM LING Country Director Brief Job Description: Oversee the implementation of strategic plan, develop and execute the existing company business strategies Basic Qualification: Possess skills on financial management, building capacity & planning and analytical thinking Salary Range: Php150,000 - Php499,999

15 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite TRINH THI HANG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries

Brief Job Description: Prepare production document for new and existing products Basic Qualification: Bachelor’s Degree in related field Salary Range: Php150,000 - Php499,999

7 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite HUANG, YI Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

13 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite DUONG VAN KHAI Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

18 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite

20 TE PHILIPPINESMANUFACTURINGCONNECTIVITYINC. Lot 38-A, Phase 1B, FPIP-SEZ, Ulango, City of Tanauan, Batangas KHAN, SALEEM SHAYEEB Senior Manufacturing Operations Team Leader

9 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite LI, WANCHEN Chinese Customer Service Representative

5 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite CHEN, MINGLI Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

4 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite THIN PYINT PYINT MGY Burmese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

8 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite LE THI AI VY Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries

12 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite SARJONO Indonesian Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

6 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite DENG, HONG Chinese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

NOTICE OF FILING OF APPLICATION/S FOR ALIEN EMPLOYMENT PERMIT/S (AEP/S) Notice is hereby given that the following companies/employers have filed with this Regional Office application/s for Alien Employment Permit/s: To avail of free job referral, placement, and employment guidance services, visit the nearest Public Employment Service Offices (PESO) or log on at http://www.philjobnet.gov.ph NO. ESTABLISHMENT NAME OF FOREIGN NATIONAL, POSITION AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION QUALIFICATION AND SALARY RANGE 1 HIBLOW PHILIPPINES INC. Block 4, Lot 2, FCIE, Langkaan I, City of Dasmariñas, Cavite YOKOTANI, TADASHI Technical Advisor Brief Job Description: Assist in implementing product improvement reviews, give guidance or opinions related to the performance of products and resolve product issues Basic Qualification: Must be fluent in Japanese and English Salary Range: Php90,000 - Php149,999

17 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite TRUONG VAN QUANG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

Any person in the Philippines who is competent, able and willing to perform the services for which the foreign national is desired may file an objection at DOLE Regional Office IV-A located at 3rd and 4th Floors, Andenson Building II, Parian, Calamba City, Laguna, within 30 days after this publication. Please inform DOLE Regional Office IV-A if you have any information on criminal offense committed by the foreign nationals.

11 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite SHI, YALONG Chinese Customer Service Representative

August 12,

14 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite TRAN XUAN LONG Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries

SSENYONGA MUSISI, ALFRED Computer Teacher/Faculty Brief Job Description: Support and help the administration in the performance of its duties and obligations for the welfare of the school Basic Qualification: College graduate and can teach computer subject Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

Republic of the Philippines DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT Regional Office No. IV-A 4th Flr. Andenson Bldg. II, Brgy. Parian, Calamba City Telefax No.: (049) 545-7362 2022

16 MOA CORP.CLOUDZONE Island Cove II, Covelandia Road, Pulvorista, Kawit, Cavite TRUONG THI TINH Vietnamese Customer Service Representative Brief Job Description: Manage incoming calls and customer service inquiries Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

Basic Qualification: Able to speak, read and write Chinese language Salary Range: Php30,000 - Php59,999

“There’s good reason to think inflation will continue to slow,” said Michael Pugliese, an economist at Wells Fargo. “What I think gets lost in that discussion is, slow by how much?”

The UN health agency said there were more than 14,000 Co vid-19 deaths in the last week and nearly 7 million new infections. The Western Pacific reported a 30 percent jump in cases while Africa reported a 46 percent drop. Cases also fell by more than 20 percent in the Americas and the Middle East. The number of new deaths rose by 19 percent in the Middle East, while dropping by more than 70 percent in Africa, 15 percent in Europe and 10 percent in the Americas. The WHO said that the omi cron subvariant BA.5 remains dominant globally, accounting for nearly 70 percent of all virus sequences shared with the world’s biggest publicly available virus da tabase. The agency said other omi cron subvariants, including BA.4 and BA.2, appear to be decreasing in prevalence as BA.5 takes over. The WHO cautioned that its assessment of Covid-19 trends re mains compromised by countries dropping many of their testing, surveillance and sequencing ef forts as most countries have re laxed pandemic controls. Still, Chinese authorities have announced new restrictions this week, after finding Covid-19 cases in the tourist island of Hainan and in Tibet. Earlier this week, the Chinese government shut down Lhasa’s Potala Palace, the traditional home of the Da lai Lama, and also locked down Haikou, the capital of Hainan, in addition to several other cities including the beach resort Sanya. About 80,000 tourists were stranded this week in Sanya af ter Chinese officials declared it a Covid-19 hot spot and required people to test negative five times within a week before being allowed to leave.OnTuesday, the Chinese gov ernment sent a first planeload of 125 tourists out of Sanya and said other flights would be organized to fly out tourists in batches once they fulfilled the criteria to leave.

By Christopher Rugaber AP Economics Writer W ASHINGTON—Falling prices for gas, airline tickets and clothes gave Americans a little bit of relief last month, though overall inflation is still running at close to its highest level in four decades. Consumer prices jumped 8.5 percent in July compared with a year earlier, the government said Wednesday, down from a 9.1 percent year-over-year increase in June. On a monthly basis, prices were unchanged from June to July, the first time that has happened after 25 months of increases. The report offered welcome news for congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden heading into the midterm elections. Biden highlighted the flat monthly inflation figure.

Ukraine says 9 Russian warplanes destroyed in Crimea air base blasts

By Susie Blann The Associated Press K YIV, Ukraine—Ukraine said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions at an air base in Crimea that appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack, which would represent a significant escalation in the war. Russia denied any aircraft were damaged in Tuesday’s blasts—or that any attack took place. But satellite photos clearly showed at least seven fighter planes at the base had been blown up and others probablyUkrainiandamaged.officials stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, while mocking Russia’s explanation that a careless smoker might have caused ammunition at the Saki air base to catch fire and blow up. Analysts also said that explanation doesn’t make sense and that the Ukrainians could have used anti-ship missiles to strike the base. If Ukrainian forces were, in fact, responsible for the blasts, it would be the first known major attack on a Russian military site on the Crimean Peninsula, which was seized from Ukraine by the Kremlin in 2014. Russian warplanes have used Saki to strike areas in Ukraine’s south. Crimea holds huge strategic and symbolic significance for both sides. The Kremlin’s demand that Ukraine recognize Crimea as part of Russia has been one of its key conditions for ending the fighting, while Ukraine has vowed to drive the Russians from the peninsula and all other occupied territories. The explosions, which killed one person and wounded 14, sent tourists fleeing in panic as plumes of smoke rose over the coastline nearby. Video showed shattered windows and holes in the brickwork of some buildings. One tourist, Natalia Lipovaya, said that “the earth was gone from under my feet” after the powerful blasts. “I was so scared,” she said. Sergey Milochinsky, a local resident, recalled hearing a roar and seeing a mushroom cloud from his window. “Everything began to fall around, collapse,” he said. Crimea’s regional leader, Sergei Aksyonov, said some 250 residents were moved to temporary housing after dozens of apartment buildings were damaged. Russian authorities sought to downplay the explosions, saying Wednesday that all hotels and beaches were unaffected on the peninsula, which is a popular tourist destination for many Russians. But video posted on social media showed long lines of slowly moving cars on the road to Russia as tourists headed for home. A Ukrainian presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, cryptically said that the blasts were either caused by Ukrainianmade long-range weapons or the work of Ukrainian guerrillas operating in Crimea. A Ukrainian parliament member, Oleksandr Zavitnevich, said the airfield was rendered unusable. He reported on Facebook that it housed fighter jets, tactical reconnaissance aircraft and military transport planes. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC taken at midafternoon Wednesday showed some 2 square kilometers (0.75 square mile) of grassland burned at the Saki base. Several craters marked the ground near the tarmac—typically the sign of a powerful explosion. The two runways bore no apparent damage and appeared to still be operational. Some of the fighter jets on the flight line had been moved farther down the runway, compared to images taken Tuesday before the blast. The base has been home to the Russian 43rd Independent Naval Assault Air Squadron since Moscow seized Crimea. The squadron flies Sukhoi Su-24s and Sukhoi Su-30s. The base also includes a number of earth-covered bunkers and hangars around its periphery—typically used to house munitions in case of a fire. None appeared damaged. “Official Kyiv has kept mum about it, but unofficially the military acknowledges that it was a Ukrainian strike,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said. The base is at least 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) from the closest Ukrainian position. Zhdanov suggested that Ukrainian forces could have struck it with Ukrainian or Western-supplied anti-ship missiles that have the necessary range.The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said it couldn’t independently determine what caused the explosions but noted that simultaneous blasts in two places at the base probably rule out an accidental fire but not sabotage or a missile attack. It added: “The Kremlin has little incentive to accuse Ukraine of conducting strikes that caused the damage since such strikes would demonstrate the ineffectiveness of Russian air defense systems.”During the war, the Kremlin has reported numerous fires and explosions on Russian territory near the Ukrainian border, blaming some of them on Ukrainian strikes. Ukrainian authorities have mostly kept silent about the incidents, preferring to keep the world guessing.Neither side has released much information about their own casualties. In his nightly video address Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed nearly 43,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. Colin Kahl, US undersecretary of defense for policy, estimated Monday that Russian forces have sustained up to 80,000 deaths and injuries in the fighting. He did not break down the figure with an estimate of forces killed or provide a Ukrainian casualty count. In other developments, Russian forces shelled areas across Ukraine on Tuesday night into Wednesday, including the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, where 13 people were killed, according to the region’s governor, Valentyn Reznichenko. Reznichenko said the Russians fired at the city of Marganets and a nearby village. Dozens of residential buildings, two schools and several administrative buildings were damaged. “It was a terrible night,” Reznichenko said. “It’s very hard to take bodies from under debris. We are facing a cruel enemy who engages in daily terror against our cities and villages.” In Ukraine’s east, where fighting has raged for eight years, a Russian attack on the center of the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region killed seven, wounded six and damaged stores, homes and apartment buildings, setting off fires, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said on Telegram. Bakhmut is a key target for Russian forces as they advance on regional hubs. In the city of Donetsk, which has been under the control of Russia-backed separatists since 2014, Ukrainian shelling hit a brewery, killing one person and wounding two, the separatists’ emergency service said. It said the shelling late Wednesday caused a leak of toxic ammonia and warned people to stay inside and breathe through cotton gauze. Two residents of the village of Staryi Saltiv in the Kharkiv region in the northeast were killed Wednesday in Russian shelling, police reported. In the country’s southeast, Moscow’s forces continued shelling the city of Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power station, the biggest nuclear plant in Europe. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling it, stoking international fears of a catastrophe. On Wednesday, foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies demanded that Russia immediately hand back full control of the plant to Ukraine. They said they are “profoundly concerned” about the risk of a nuclear accident with far-reaching consequences. The UN Security Council scheduled an open meeting Thursday at Russia’s request on what it claims were Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporizhzhia plant. Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief who said last week that the situation at the plant “is completely out of control,” was expected to brief the Thecouncil.Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer and Michael Biesecker in Washington and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

The World BusinessMirrorFriday, August 12, 2022 Editor: Angel R. Calso • www.businessmirror.com.phA14 LONDON—The number of coronavirus deaths fell by 9 percent in the last week while new cases remained relatively stable, according to the latest weekly pandemic report released by the World Health Organization Wednesday. WHO says Covid-19 deaths fall overall by 9%, infections stable

PLANET LABS PBC VIA AP

Much of the relief last month was felt by travelers: Hotel room costs fell 2.7 percent from June to July, airfares nearly 8 percent and rental car prices a whopping 9.5 percent. Those price drops followed steep increases in the past year after Covid-19 cases eased and travel rebounded. Airfares are still nearly 30 percent higher than they were a year ago.

“I just want to say a number: zero,” he told reporters. “Today we received news that our economy had zero percent inflation in the month of July.” Republicans, who have made inflation a top campaign issue, stressed that prices are still painfully high. Texas GOP Rep. Kevin Brady highlighted grocery costs and said Americans “continue to struggle under President Biden’s cruel economy, with shrinking paychecks, a shrinking economy and a shrinking workforce.”

Now she worries that she will lose her food stamps in the coming months because of her extra income. Michael Altfest, director of community engagement at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland, said his organization now provides about 4.5 million pounds of food a month, up from below 4 million in January. The group has also budgeted for a 66 percent increase in fuel costs. That’s mostly because of higher gas prices but also because it’s now using more trucks to keep up with the demand for food. Altfest’s own rent recently jumped 14 percent, he said, forcing him to recalibrate his budget.“All these costs are going up, all at once,” he said. “The people here were stretched already.”Lastmonth’s modest slowdown in inflation might enable the Fed to slow the pace of its increases in short-term rates when it meets in late September—a possibility that sent stock prices jumping. How quickly and how far the Fed raises borrowing costs has significant effects on the economy: Sharper hikes tend to reduce consumer and business borrowing and spending and make a recession more likely. If the Fed doesn’t have to raise rates as high to restrain prices, it has a better chance of engineering an elusive “soft landing,” whereby growth slows enough to curb high inflation but not so much as to cause a recession. Still, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has emphasized that the central bank needs to see a series of lower readings on core inflation before it will pause rate hikes. The Fed has boosted its short-term rate by 2.25 percentage points in the past four meetings, the fastest series of increases since the early 1980s. Biden has pointed to declining gas prices as a sign that his policies—including large releases from the nation’s strategic oil reserve—are helping lessen the higher costs that have hurt household finances, particularly for lower-income Americans and Black and Hispanic households. There are other signs that inflation may fade in coming months. Americans’ expectations for future inflation have fallen, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, likely reflecting the drop in gas prices that is highly visible to most consumers. Inflation expectations can be self-fulfilling: If people believe inflation will stay high or worsen, they’re likely to take steps—such as demanding higher pay—that can send prices higher in a self-perpetuating cycle. Companies then often raise prices to offset higher their higher labor costs. But the New York Fed survey found that Americans’ foresee lower inflation one, three and five years from now than they did a month ago. Supply chain snarls are also loosening, with fewer ships moored off Southern California ports and shipping costs declining. Prices for commodities like corn, wheat and copper have fallen Stubbornsteeply.inflation isn’t just a US phenomenon. Prices have jumped in the United Kingdom, Europe and in less developed nations such as Argentina. In the UK, inflation soared 9.4 percent in June from a year earlier, a four-decade high. In the 19 countries that use the euro currency, it reached 8.9 percent in June compared with a year earlier, the highest since record-keeping for the euro began.

Gas prices dropped from $5 a gallon, on average, in mid-June to $4.20 by the end of last month, and were just $4.01 on Wednesday, according to AAA. Oil prices have also fallen, and cheaper gas will likely pull down inflation this month as well, economists said. Last month’s declines in travel-related prices helped lower core inflation, a measure that excludes the volatile food and energy categories and provides a clearer picture of underlying price trends. Core prices rose just 0.3 percent from June, the smallest monthto-month increase since March. Compared with a year ago, core inflation amounted to 5.9 percent in July, the same year-over-year increase as in June. All told, the July figures raised hope that inflation may have peaked after more than a year of relentless increases that have strained household finances, soured Americans on the economy, led the Federal Reserve to raise borrowing rates aggressively and diminished President Joe Biden’s public approval ratings. Americans are still absorbing bigger price increases than they have in decades. Grocery prices jumped 1.1 percent in July and are 13 percent higher than a year ago, the largest year-over-year increase since 1979. Bread prices leaped 2.8 percent last month, the most in more than two years. Rental and medical care costs rose, though slightly less than in previous months. A strong job market and healthy wage increases have encouraged more Americans to move out on their own, reducing the number of available apartments and pushing up rental costs. Wall Street purchases of homes and trailer parks have also lifted monthly payments. Average paychecks are rising faster than they have in decades, but not fast enough to keep up with inflation. As a result, some retirees have felt the need in recent months to return to the workforce. Among them is Charla Bulich, who lives in San Leandro, California. For the past six months Bulich, 73, has worked a few hours a week caring for an elderly woman because her Social Security and food stamps don’t cover her rising costs. “I go over my budget all the time—that’s why I had to go get a job,” Bulich said. “I wouldn’t even think about buying hamburger meat or a steak or something like that.”

A MAN pulls his mask to get his routine Covid-19 throat swab at a coronavirus testing site in Beijing on Tuesday, August 9, 2022. Chinese authorities have closed Tibet’s famed Potala Palace after a minor outbreak of Covid-19 was reported in the Himalayan region. AP/ANDY WONG

Even if it were to fall to 4 percent—less than half its current level—Pugliese suggested that the Federal Reserve would need to keep raising interest rates or at least keep them high.

Lower prices offer Americans slight reprieve from inflation

The Associated Press Writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

The reprieve offered no certainty that prices would stay on the decline. Inflation has slowed in the recent past only to re-accelerate in subsequent months. And even if price increases continue to weaken, they are a long way from the Fed’s 2 percent annual target.

A SATELLITE image by Planet Labs PBC shows Saki Air Base after an explosion there Wednesday, August 10, 2022, in the Crimean Peninsula, the Black Sea peninsula seized from Ukraine by Russia and annexed in March 2014. Ukraine said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions at an air base in Crimea that appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack, which would represent a significant escalation in the war.

Britain said that Moscow was already strained by the need to produce armored fighting vehicles for its troops in Ukraine and hence “is highly unlikely to be capable of fulfilling some export orders,” in a sector it has long taken pride in. The British defense intelligence update, highlighting “the increas ing effect of Western sanctions,” dovetails with Western belief that the series of measures they im posed on the Kremlin since the February 24 invasion of Ukraine are increasingly having an impact on the Russian economy. The update said that because of the war and sanctions, “its military industrial capacity is now under significant strain, and the credibility of many of its weapon systems has been undermined by their association with Russian forces’ poor performance.” Russia military credibility came under more pressure on Wednes day when Ukraine said nine Rus sian warplanes were destroyed in a string of explosions at an air base in Russian-controlled Crimea that appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack.

North Korea declares disputed victory over virus, blames Seoul

AP/DAVID ZALUBOWSKI BRITISH Defense Secretary Ben Wallace speaks during a joint press conference with Danish Minister of Defense Morten Bodskov and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov about the support for Ukraine in Copenhagen on Wednesday, August 10, 2022. The upcoming international donation conference, which will take place in Copenhagen on Thursday, August 11, 2022, will strengthen the long-term support for Ukraine with discussions on how financing, weapons production, training and demining can be strengthened going forward.

Britain says new sanctions also impact Russia’s defense sector

By Kim Tong-Hyung The Associated Press S EOUL, South Korea—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared victory over Covid-19 and ordered preventive measures eased just three months after acknowledging an outbreak, claiming the country’s widely dis puted success would be recognized as a global health miracle. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also reported Thursday that Kim’s sister said her brother had suffered a fever and blamed the North Korean outbreak on leaflets flown from across the border from South Korea, while warning of deadly retaliation. Some experts believe North Ko rea has manipulated the scale of the outbreak to help Kim maintain absolute control of the country amid mounting economic diffi culties. They believe the victory statement signals Kim’s aim to move to other priorities but are concerned his sister’s remarks portend a provocation. South Korea’s Unification Min istry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, issued a statement ex pressing strong regret over North Korea’s “extremely disrespectful and threatening comments” that were based on “ridiculous claims” about the source of its infections. Since North Korea admitted to an omicron outbreak of the virus in May, it has reported about 4.8 million “fever cases” in its popula tion of 26 million but only identi fied a fraction of them as Covid-19. It has claimed the outbreak has been slowing for weeks and just 74 people have died. “Since we began operating the maximum emergency anti-epi demic campaign [in May], daily fever cases that reached hundreds of thousands during the early days of the outbreak were reduced to below 90,000 a month later and continuously decreased, and not a single case of fever suspected to be linked to the evil virus has been reported since July 29,” Kim said in his speech Wednesday, ac cording to KCNA. “For a country that has yet to ad minister a single vaccine shot, our success in overcoming the spread of the illness in such a short period of time and recovering safety in public health and making our na tion a clean virus-free zone again is an amazing miracle that would be recorded in the world’s history of public health,” he said. For Kim to declare victory against Covid-19 suggests that he wants to move on to other priori ties, such as boosting a broken and heavily sanctioned economy fur ther damaged by pandemic border closures or conducting a nuclear test, said Leif-Eric Easley, a pro fessor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. South Korean and US officials have said North Korea could be gearing up for its first nuclear test in five years amid its torrid run of weapons tests this year that included its first demonstrations of intercontinental ballistic mis siles since 2017. The provocative testing activity underscores Kim’s dual intent to advance his arsenal and pressure the Biden administration over long-stalled negotiations aimed at leveraging its nukes for badly needed sanctions relief and secu rity concessions, experts say. Kim Jun-rak, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday the South Korean military was maintaining firm readiness and prepared for “various possibilities” of North Korean provocations. The bellicose rhetoric of Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, is concerning because it indicates she will try to blame any Covid-19 resurgence on the South and is also looking to justify North Korea’s next military provocation, Easley said. North Korea first suggested in July that its Covid-19 outbreak began in people who had contact with objects carried by balloons flown from South Korea—a ques tionable and unscientific claim that appeared to be an attempt to hold its rival responsible. Activists for years have flown balloons across the border to dis tribute hundreds of thousands of propaganda leaflets critical of Kim, and North Korea has often expressed fury at the activists and at South Korea’s leadership for not stoppingDuringthem.Wednesday’s meet ing, Kim Yo Jong reiterated those claims, calling the country’s virus crisis a “hysteric farce” kicked off by South Korea to escalate confrontation. She claimed that her brother had suffered fever symptoms and praised his “ener getic and meticulous guidance” for bringing an “epoch-making mira cle” in the fight against Covid-19. “[South Korean] puppets are still thrusting leaflets and dirty objects into our territory. We must counter it toughly,” she said. “We have already considered vari ous counteraction plans, but our countermeasure must be a deadly retaliatory one.” Kim Yo Jong’s reference to Kim Jong Un’s illness wasn’t further explained.Outside experts suspect the virus spread after North Korea briefly reopened its northern bor der with China to freight traffic in January and surged further following a military parade and other large-scale events in Pyong yang in April.

MARTIN SYLVEST/RITZAU SCANPIX VIA AP

K YIV, Ukraine—The European Union’s full ban on Russian coal imports kicked in on Thursday at a time when British defense intelligence said that Western sanctions were increasingly having an impact, even on Russia’s defense exports.

AAAessentials.saidthe

BusinessMirror Friday, August 12, 2022 The World www.businessmirror.com.ph A15

AP A MOTORIST fills up the tank on a sedan, on July 22, 2022, in Saratoga, Wyo. Gasoline prices are sliding back toward the $4 mark for the first time in more than five months—good news for consumers who are struggling with high prices for many other essentials.

Prices at the pump are likely to be a major issue heading into the mid-term elections in RepublicansNovember.blame President Joe Biden for the high gasoline prices, seizing on his decisions to cancel a permit for a major pipeline and suspend new oil and gas leases on federal lands. Biden said over the weekend that a family with two cars is saving $100 a month because prices have dropped from their peak in mid-June. “That’s breathing room,” he tweeted. “And we’re not letting up any time soon.” Biden has also sparred with oil companies, accusing them of not producing as much oil and gasoline as they could while posting huge profits. “Exxon made more money than God this year,” he said in June. Exxon said it has increased oil production. The CEO of Chevron said Biden was trying to vilify his industry. The nationwide average for gas hasn’t been under $4 since early March. Prices topped out at $5.02 a gallon on June 14, according to AAA. They declined slowly the rest of June, then began dropping moreMotoristsrapidly. in California and Hawaii are still paying above $5, and other states in the West are paying close to that. The cheapest gas is in Texas and several other states in the South and Midwest. A year ago, the nationwide average price was around $3.20 a gallon.

Ministry denies that any “mobilization activities” are taking place, authorities seem to be pulling out all the stops to bolster enlistment. Billboards and public transit ads in various regions proclaim, “This is The Job,” urging men to join the professional army. Authorities have set up mobile recruiting centers in some cities, including one at the site of a half marathon in Siberia in May. Regional administrations are forming “volunteer battalions” that are promoted on state television. The business daily Kommersant counted at least 40 such entities in 20 regions, with officials promising volunteers monthly salaries ranging from the equivalent of $2,150 to nearly $5,500, plus bonuses. The AP saw thousands of openings on job search websites for various military specialists.TheBritish military said this week that Russia had formed a major new ground force called the 3rd Army Corps from “volunteer battalions,” seeking men up to age 50 and requiring only a middle-school education, while offering “lucrative cash bonuses” once they are deployed to Ukraine. But complaints also are surfacing in the media that some aren’t getting their promised payments, although those reports can’t be independently verified. In early August, Tabalov said he began receiving multiple requests for legal help from reservists who have been ordered to take part in a two-month training in areas near the border with Ukraine. The recruitment of prisoners has been going on in recent weeks in as many as seven regions, said Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the Gulagu.net prisoner rights group, citing inmates and their relatives that his group had contacted. AP

Russia denied any aircraft were damaged in the blasts—or that any attack took place. But satel lite photos clearly showed at least seven fighter planes at the base had been blown up and others probably damaged.British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace dismissed Russian ex planations of the blasts, includ ing a wayward cigarette butt, as “excuses.”“When you just look at the foot age of two simultaneous explosions not quite next to each other, and some of the reported damage even by the Russian authorities, I think it’s clear that that’s not something that happens by someone dropping a cigarette,” Wallace said. Thursday also marked the day when an EU ban on coal imports from Russia was taking effect in following a long phase-in going back to April. The 27-nation EU said it will affect about 25percent of Russian coal exports and create a loss of about $8 billion a year. The EU is also trying to wean itself off Russian gas imports, but is too dependent to impose a full ban. As the war is now nearing the half-year point, Russia is facing other challenges too. As Russia continues to suffer losses in its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has refused to an nounce a full-blown mobilization, also because such a move could be very unpopular for President Vlad imir Putin. That has led instead to a covert recruitment effort that includes using prisoners to make up the manpower shortage. This also is happening amid reports that hundreds of Russian soldiers are refusing to fight and trying to quit the military. On the ground in Ukraine itself, the war continued with the repeti tive blasts of incoming shells. Three people were killed during the night of the city of Nikopol, according to the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Valen tyn Reznichenko, with nine oth ers injured in the shelling which damaged about 40 apartment buildings.Nikopol is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) downriver from Zapor izhzhia. In the Donetsk region, 11 people were killed over the past day, six of them in Bakhmut, ac cording to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. Bakhmut is a key tar get for Russian forces as they try to advance in the east. The governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, said Thursday that two villages near the Ukrainian border—Tetkino and Popovo-Lezhachi—came un der fire from Ukraine. He didn’t immediately give details about ca sualties or the extent of damage. AP G ASOLINE prices dipped to just under the $4 mark for the first time in more than five months— good news for consumers who are struggling with high prices for many other national average for a gallon of regular was $3.99 on Thursday. Prices have dropped 15 cents in the past week and 68 cents in the last month, according to the auto club. The shopping app GasBuddy reported that the national average was already down to $3.98 on Wednesday. Falling prices for gas, airline tickets and clothes are giving consumers a bit of relief, although inflation is still close to a four-decade high. Oil prices began rising in mid-2020 as economies recovered from the initial shock of the pandemic. They rose again when the US and allies announced sanctions against Russian oil over Russia’s war againstRecently,Ukraine.however, oil prices have dropped on concern about slowing economic growth around the world. US benchmark crude oil has recently dipped close to $90 a barrel from over $120 a barrel in June. High prices also may be causing US motorists to drive less. Gasoline demand in early August was down 3.3percent from the same week last year after tracking more closely to 2021 numbers earlier in the summer.

IN this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shakes hands with a health official in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Wednesday, August 10, 2022. Kim has declared victory over Covid-19 and ordered an easing of preventive measures. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY/KOREA NEWS SERVICE VIA AP

Gas prices dip just below $4 for the first time in 5 months

T HE prisoners at the penal colony in St. Petersburg were expecting a visit by officials, thinking it would be some sort of inspection. Instead, men in uniform arrived and offered them amnesty—if they agreed to fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine. Over the following days, about a dozen or so left the prison, according to a woman whose boyfriend is serving a sentence there. Speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared reprisals, she said her boyfriend wasn’t among the volunteers, although with years left on his sentence, he “couldn’t not think about it.” As Russia continues to suffer losses in its invasion of Ukraine, now nearing its sixth month, the Kremlin has refused to announce a full-blown mobilization—a move that could be very unpopular for President Vladimir Putin. That has led instead to a covert recruitment effort that includes using prisoners to make up the manpower shortage. This also is happening amid reports that hundreds of Russian soldiers are refusing to fight and trying to quit the military. “We’re seeing a huge outflow of people who want to leave the war zone—those who have been serving for a long time and those who have signed a contract just recently,” said Alexei Tabalov, a lawyer who runs the Conscript’s School legal aid group. The group has seen an influx of requests from men who want to terminate their contracts, “and personally get the impression that everyone who can is ready to run away,” Tabalov said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And the Defense Ministry is digging deep to find those it can persuade to Althoughserve.”theDefense

Russia struggles to replenish troops in Ukraine as war rages

Printed by brown madonna Press, Inc.–Sun Valley Drive KM-15, South Superhighway, Parañaque, Metro Manila

Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Founder Since 2005 ✝ OF

Better Days sonny M. angara

MEMBER

R eCeNtLy, we received some good news that among several bills that recently lapsed into law was the increase in the social pension for indigent senior citizens from the present P500 to P1,000 per month or from P6,000 to P12,000 annually. We filed this bill early in the 18th Congress as senate Bill 133 and it is now officially known as Republic Act 11916.

The social pension for indigent senior citizens was first introduced as additional government assistance under R.A. 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizen’s Act of 2010, which we co-authored. R.A. 9994 amended the original Senior Citizen’s Act (R.A. 7432) to provide more benefits for Filipinos aged 60 and above, including the grant of a 20-percent discount on the purchase of certain goods and services such as medicines, a special five-percent discount on prime commodities and basic necessities, and an exemption from the value added tax on the sale of goods and services. Both laws were authored by my father, the late former Senate President Edgardo Angara. In recognition of his role in the shaping of this landmark law, R.A. 7432 has since been known as the households so that they can sustain their advance from a poverty or lowincomeThus,trap.anexisting national social protection system can be tapped in an emergency response more quickly and could even cover a larger number of people. At the same time, this engagement with social assistance systems to deliver humanitarian responses can contribute to strengthening the state system in dealing with emergencies and building resilience of households and communities. Across the developing world, practices linking social protection programs and humanitarian assistance have been increasing through a common listing of beneficiaries or joint delivery platforms for cash transfers. Social protection, disaster risk response, and humanitarian assistance are programs that tackle the problems of poverty and vulnerability, two issues closely linked together. Synergy among these programs can lead to a sustained effort by government to lift millions of Filipinos out of the poverty trap. In the Philippines, there were specific instances where the platforms of 4Ps, a social protection program, were utilized in the emergency operations of two humanitarian and development partners: the World Food Programme and UNICEF. This was during the relief and rehabilitation efforts in the aftermath of Yolanda. There was, indeed, convergence between social protection and humanitarian assistance, and the government must build on these positive experiences. The DSWD plays a prominent role in the national disaster risk management framework. It is the lead agency in disaster response activities, which include prevention and mitigation, preparedness, relief, recovery, and rehabilitation. Concurrently, it also co-chairs four coordinating clusters of the UN cluster system: food security, shelter, camp coordination and camp management, and protection. Another important factor is that the DSWD is the lead agency in implementing many social protection programs, especially the 4Ps, and, at the same time, in the disaster response. Thus, it should be able to facilitate the linkage and convergence of more social protection, disaster response, and humanitarian assistance programs in collaboration with other relevant agencies. Within DSWD itself, key elements for linkage and convergence are in place: a database of poor households for targeting, a network of field personnel all over the country implementing a social safety net program, a cash payment delivery system, a data and information management

BusinessMirror A

Marcos declared “no more lockdowns” in his first sONA, the senate is implementing a “three-week lockdown” as it tightened its health and safety protocols amid surging Covid infections. senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Imee Marcos and Cynthia Villar tested positive for Covid and are isolating, although they still attend sessions online.

sOCIAL protection programs were originally established for formal sector workers. In recent years, though, it has expanded to marginalized sectors, especially those in the informal economy. With the onset of food, financial, and fuel crises in 2008, there has been increased discussion on forging better coherence between humanitarian assistance and social protection measures to reduce the need for recurring humanitarian assistance and facilitate more effective responses in times of crisis.

From the humanitarian assistance side, using an existing targeting mechanism and delivery platform may incur much less operational costs as compared to other parallel mechanisms. At the same time, social protection programs can readily provide mitigating mechanisms during shocks (e.g., micro insurance for shelter, crop insurance for damages incurred), reducing actual costs for recovery.

How is humanitarian assistance different from existing safety nets in the social protection system? The general situation where humanitarian actors work is volatile and chaotic, which immediately threatens the lives of affected victims. Thus, humanitarian assistance programs have short time horizons and survival objectives, and government funds for such are usually augmented by development partners. However, safety nets are longer in duration and are usually funded by government budgets. What is important to consider, though, is that, frequently, both programs have common target beneficiaries in a community. This is obvious, as the two usually prioritize the transient and chronic poor and share similar program elements (e.g., cash transfers), but they use different institutional and delivery platforms. Again, linking social protection and humanitarian assistance is also necessary from a financing standpoint. An increasing number of donors are keen to transfer “humanitarian caseloads” into social protection systems, as some of the current humanitarian functions may be delivered through safety nets more effectively and efficiently. From the humanitarian assistance side, using an existing targeting mechanism and delivery platform may incur much less operational costs as compared to other parallel mechanisms. At the same time, social protection programs can readily provide mitigating mechanisms during shocks (e.g., micro insurance for shelter, crop insurance for damages incurred), reducing actual costs for recovery. Nevertheless, disaster or conflict shocks easily negate the gains provided by social protection programs on poor and near-poor households. Integrating humanitarian assistance in case of such shocks provides a cushion for these

These benefits for our seniors, while small, can go a long way in addressing their everyday needs. They made a lot of sacrifices in their lives to care for their children and loved ones so we must constantly find ways to give back to them. broader look at today’s business

eaGLe WatCH Dr. Fernando t aldaba

As of August 11, the country has 36,035 active cases, according to the Department of Health. Of these cases, 21,138 are mild, 291 cases are severe, and 128 patients are in critical condition. The Philippine Genome Center on Monday said the current spike in Covid-19 infections is brought about by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant. In a televised public briefing, PGC Executive Director Cynthia Saloma said about 85 percent of the sequenced samples is composed of Omicron BA.5 subvariant. The country sequences about 1,200 samples per week.

www.news.businessmirror@gmail.comFriday, August 12, 2022 • Editor: Angel R. Calso Opinion BusinessMirrorA16

The World Health Organization said Covid-19 deaths fell by 9 percent last week with over 14,000 fatalities reported. Globally, the number of new weekly cases remained stable from August 1 to 7 as compared to the previous week, with over 6.9 million new cases reported. As of August 7, WHO reported a global total of 581.8 million confirmed cases and 6.4 million deaths. At the country level, WHO said the highest numbers of new weekly cases were reported from Japan (496,968 new cases; up 9 percent), the United States (759,806 new cases; down 19 percent), the Republic of Korea (713,078 new cases; up 26 percent), Vietnam (571,458 new cases), and Turkey (406,322 new cases). The highest numbers of new weekly deaths were reported from the United States (2,764 new deaths; down 2 percent), Brazil (1,445 new deaths; down 21 percent), Italy (1,059 new deaths; down 12 percent), Japan (1,002 new deaths; up 53 percent), and Spain (654 new deaths; up 23 percent). The world health body issued a caveat on current trends in reported Covid-19 cases and deaths. It said the figures should be interpreted with caution as several countries have been progressively changing Covid-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected. GISAID, which stands for the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, provides open access to genomic data of influenza viruses and the coronavirus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. Globally, from July 8 to August 8, 2022, a total of 175,384 sequences were collected and uploaded to GISAID. Among these, 174,089 sequences were Omicron variant of concern, accounting for 99 percent of sequences reported globally in the past 30 days. A comparison of sequences submitted to GISAID from July 24 to 30 and July 17 to 23 shows that BA.5 Omicron remains dominant globally, accounting for nearly 70 percent of all sequenced virus samples. The agency said other Omicron subvariants, including BA.4 and BA.2, appear to be decreasing in prevalence as the BA.5 subvariant dominates. As we relax our pandemic controls like most countries, it pays to remember that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is causing a major spike in local cases, is the same subvariant that is currently wreaking major havoc worldwide. Early evidence suggests the BA.5 subvariant has features that make it better at escaping immune systems, even among the vaccinated, than its ancestors. Filipinos already know how to avoid Covid infection. But as the pandemic abates, we have a new enemy—pandemic fatigue and complacency. Let’s not allow complacency to undermine efforts to control the spread of Covid in the country.

editorial Our new enemy is LcomplacencyessthanthreeweeksafterPresident

The need for shock-responsive social protection

Angara Law. The increase in social pension is long overdue. If we take into consideration the surging inflation, then P500 per month is definitely not enough even for the most frugal. Based on the guidelines of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), as the implementing agency for the distribution of the social pension, eligible seniors should fall within the following criteria: frail, sickly or with disability; without pension from the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, or from any sources of pension in government and private agencies; and without any permanent source of income, compensation or financial assistance from relatives to support their basicWeneeds.alsowelcome the move of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to extend the discounts given to seniors and persons with disabilities (PWDs) to online purchases of basic necessities and prime commodities (BNPC), as well as medicines. This is contained in Joint Memorandum Circular No. 1 Series of 2022, which states that BNPCs purchased through digital channels or by phone are entitled to a five percent special discount. The discount is limited to a total of P1,300 worth of BNPCs per week. For medicines purchased on online platforms or merchants, they are also entitled to the same 20-percent discount and exemption from the 12-percent value added tax as provided under R.A. 9994. Unlike the BNPCs, this has no purchase limit. See “Angara,” A17 See “Eagle Watch,” A17

GroupAdvertisingChairmanChiefCreativeAssociateEditorPublisherinChiefEditorNewsEditorSeniorEditorsOnlineEditorDirectorPhotographeroftheBoardPresidentSalesManagerCirculationManager

T. Anthony C. Cabangon Lourdes M. Fernandez Jennifer A. Ng Vittorio V. Vitug Lorenzo M. Lomibao Jr., Gerard S. Ramos Lyn B. Resurreccion, Dennis D. Estopace Angel R. Calso Ruben M. Cruz Jr. Eduardo A. Davad Nonilon G. Reyes D. Edgard A. Cabangon Benjamin V. Ramos Aldwin Maralit Tolosa Rolando M. Manangan is published daily by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror Publishing, Inc., with offices on the 3rd floor of Dominga Building III 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines. Tel. Nos. (Editorial) 817-9467; 813-0725. Fax line: 813-7025. (Advertising Sales) 893-2019; 817-1351, 817-2807. (Circulation) 893-1662; 814-0134 to 36. E-mail: news.businessmirror@gmail.com www.news.businessmirror@gmail.com

BusinessMirror

Giving back to the elderly

Since the military violently wrestled power from Myanmar’s democratically elected leaders, no Asean member-nation has recognized the junta and even banned its leaders from attending the high-level meetings. A week before the Asean ministers met in Phnom Penh, the junta executed four opposition leaders despite appeals from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Senator Sonny Angara has been in public service for 18 years—9 years as Representative of the Lone District of Aurora, and 9 as Senator. He has authored and sponsored more than 250 laws. He is currently serving his second term in the Senate. E-mail: sensonnyangara@yahoo.com Facebook, Twitter & Instagram: @sonnyangara do you solve a problem like Myanmar?

Friday, August 12, 2022 Opinion A17BusinessMirrorwww.news.businessmirror@gmail.com

Be that as it may, the Dark Ages as a period is an appropriate trope for what is happening to our present society. More specifically, we can call to mind the so-called “Digital Dark Age,” first mentioned, according to popular historians, in a conference by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in 1997. The term refers to the unimpeded obsolescence of corrupted hardware and software, the disappearance of files due to shift in formats, and similar factors.

As factory and private sector employment shrink, young jobseekers increasingly are targeting government jobs, coveted for their security, prestige and benefits. Some, like 21-year-old Sahil Rajput, view such work as a way out of poverty. Rajput has been fervently preparing for a job in the army, working in a low-paid data-entry job to afford private coaching to become a soldier and support his unemployed parents.Butin June, the government overhauled military recruitment to cut costs and modernize, changing long-term postings into four-year contracts after which only 25 percebt of recruits will be retained. That move triggered weeks of protests, with young people setting vehicles on Rajputfire. knows he might not be able to get a permanent army job. “But I have no other options,” he said. “How can I dream of a future when my present is in tatters?”

Living our own Dark Ages

Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary for Asean Affairs Daniel Espiritu said that Asean ministers’ “disappointment and even condemnation and denunciation have been repeated again and again” on Myanmar junta during the recent Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh. Since the military violently wrestled power from Myanmar’s democratically elected leaders, no Asean member-nation has recognized the junta and even banned its leaders from attending the high-level meetings. A week before the Asean ministers met in Phnom Penh, the junta executed four opposition leaders despite appeals from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. However, “there’s no consensus of the next steps on what to do with Myanmar,” Espiritu acknowledged. Instead, the ministers tossed the problem to the nine Asean leaders who will meet on November in Cambodia.“Theconsensus is that given the current developments, we will assess the progress on the Five-Point Consensus, and, in fact, that task will be elevated to the leaders during the summit,” Espiritu said. Asean has been criticized by some of its own members as well as other countries for doing too little to pressure Myanmar to implement the Five-PointCambodianConsensus.Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Park Sokhonn, who is also the Asean special envoy to Myanmar, had earlier said that if junta executes more opposition leaders, “then things will have to beThereconsidered.”Five-PointConsensus that Espiritu was referring to were steps the junta agreed to undertake: an immediate end to violence in the country; dialogue among all parties concerned; the appointment of a special envoy; provision of humanitarian assistance by Asean; and a visit by the bloc’s special envoy to Myanmar to meet with all parties. Among the five conditions, Myanmar has only implemented the appointment of a special envoy. But even then, the special envoy—first from Brunei, and this year from Cambodia—were prevented from engaging with the other stakeholders such as the opposition and ethnic group leaders. “I think it’s premature to say that the Five-Point Consensus is already a failure. From the very start, the understanding is that it will take some time before that can work. But the point is that we, in the Asean, is still very much on it,” Espiritu said. Asean members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. bite-sizeScatteredviews.online are countless student assignments on Philippine society and culture. Do a cursory check and be shocked at the wrong data proliferating. The factual error can start from aggressive claims. For example, if an individual posts a particular claim, another person will share that and the error proliferates. It is not true therefore to say that so long as the students have access to the Internet, they can have a supplement to their lessons. These are the minor online incidents. More terrible events are happening online and these are the newfound abilities of ordinary individuals to create their own videos and some such things. It is, to put it mildly, a free-for-all. No regulation and no parental guidance exist online. Take the weather reports, for example. Five years ago, there was the Pagasa and other weather bureaus referred to by TV and radio newscasters. Presently, self-made weathermen have transformed themselves into prophet of dooms, exaggerating reports by splicing videos from varied sources without citing their sources. You sense almost this glee as they report on how cities are sinking and how floods are “drowning” cities. With no proper training, their reports are not only ungrammatical but also dangerously simplistic in catastrophic warnings, with names of places misspelled. Some have even appropriated the line, Breaking News, a tag that attracts viewership. Where the viewer has the critical eye, then these flights of fancy can remain as such, soaring stupidity for all to view online. However, that is where things begin: the lack or absence of critical eyes. Against the helpless pleadings of a few enlightened persons, a series of videos featuring this young girl dressed skimpily, sometimes in swimsuits, mimicking the moves of a model or beauty queen, persist. Given the costuming, the poor girl appears like a freak, her hair big and her face all dolled up. She is, according to one complaining, a pedophile’s dream. Sexualized and all. And yet for every complaint, more plaudits appear on the thread. They are congratulating the girl’s parents for developing her into a future beauty queen. Even online selling has found a new life, with young boys and girls selling shorts and shirts appearing as well in adult sites where they are performing sexual acts for paying clients. I guess this ups the hits their marketing sitesRegularreceive.fare in the social participation in the social media are the numerous vlogs that, for many unexplained reasons, appear to generate fandom despite the fact that nothing seems to happen within those few minutes of shared experience. There are vloggers who do shout-outs, reminding you of the radio days when callers would endlessly dedicate a particular song to some 10 or 20 listeners. There is a vlogger who eats with his hands while waiting for viewers to send himAnd“stars.”ifyou hit the greatest point of boredom, you can always try vlogs that show ingrown nails being pulled —blood, pus and fungus included for entertainment purposes. Dark Ages, indeed. E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com

At 75, India seeks way forward in big but job-scarce economy

Angara. . . continued from A16

regular wages and security, while most others are precarious and lowquality with few to no benefits. That’s partly because agriculture remains the mainstay, with about 40% of workers engaged in farming. As workers lost jobs in cities during the pandemic, many flocked back to farms, pushing up the numbers. “This didn’t necessarily improve productivity—but you’re employed as a farmer. It’s disguised unemployment,” Vyas said. With independence from Britain in 1947, the country’s leaders faced a formidable task: GDP was a mere 3 percent of the world’s total, literacy rates stood at 14 percent and the average life expectancy was 32 years, saidByAdhia.themost recent measures, literacy stands at 74 percent and life expectancy at 70 years. Dramatic progress came with historic reforms in the 1990s that swept away decades of socialist control over the economy and spurred remarkable growth. The past few decades inspired comparisons to China as foreign investment poured in, exports thrived and new industries—like information technology—were born. But India, a latecomer to offshoring by Western multinationals, is struggling to create mass employment through manufacturing. And it faces new challenges in plotting a wayFinancingforward. has tended to flow into profitable, capital intensive sectors like petrol, metal and chemicals. Industries employing large numbers of workers, like textiles and leatherwork, have faltered. This trend continued through the pandemic: despite Modi’s 2014 ‘Make in India’ pitch to turn the country into another factory floor for the world, manufacturing now employs around 30 million. In 2017, it employed 50 million, according to CMIE data.

Transposed, however, to local conditions, the Dark Ages as a period becomes a trope for what we as a people have become with our access to technology, the social media and the ubiquitous mobile phones. Let us not even include here laptops and tablets for those devices are limited in distribution according to economic class and distinction. Focus on the handy cellphones and witness how an individual is immediately connected or disconnected to truth as we know it and facts as we recognize facts and realities as we can verify the real. Remember that ad in the ’90s how the Internet has connected us all? Well, we are seeing the dark days, when social media is now threatening to disconnect us all from each other. Truths among the general populace have become relative, or are you not aware of this yet? Facts are nothing but bits and pieces of information that, by the sheer force of popular use, can be determined in terms of quantity rather than quality. The more you place online names, events, moods, images and the more they are passed on from one phone to another then the more that thing becomes factual. That information can be disinformation but due to sheer volume of dissemination, there is no chance one can disaggregate the positive from the negative, the “in” from the “dis-in.” All things being equal online, everything is information.Whathappens to the truth? It becomes malleable. It discloses itself easily to manipulation and there may not be even malice in its distortion. In fact, among the users of these online truths, distortion is not done with malice as it is imbued with unfettered imagination the way artists manufacture creative imagination. From the information to the truth, there is a small jump to reality and it does not require a leap of faith but a break from belief. Out there, we can say anything so long as we can imagine. Out there we can generate knowledge. Man and Woman have not only left the Garden, but have no need of Paradise. It is terrifying out there but let me bring down the discourse to

By Krutika Pathi & Bhumika Saraswati | The Associated Press NeW DeLhI—As India’s economy grew, the hum of factories turned the sleepy, dusty village of Manesar into a booming industrial hub, cranking out everything from cars and sinks to smartphones and tablets. But jobs have run scarce over the years, prompting more and more workers to line up along the road for work, desperate to earn money.

Every day, Sugna, a young woman in her early twenties who goes by her first name, comes with her husband and two children to the city’s labor chowk—a bazaar at the junction of four roads where hundreds of workers gather daily at daybreak to plead for work. It’s been days since she or her husband got work and she has only five rupees (six cents) in hand. Scenes like this are an everyday reality for millions of Indians, the most visible signs of economic distress in a country where raging unemployment is worsening insecurity and inequality between the rich and poor. It’s perhaps Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s biggest challenge as the country marks 75 years of independence from British rule on August 15. “We get work only once or twice a week,” said Sugna, who says she earned barely 2,000 rupees ($25) in the past five months. “What should I do with a life like this? If I live like this, how will my children live any better?”Entire families leave their homes in India’s vast rural hinterlands to camp out at such bazaars, found in nearly every city. Out of the many gathered in Manesar recently, only a lucky few got work for the day—digging roads, laying bricks and sweeping up trash for meager pay—about 80 percent of Indian workers toil in informal jobs including many who areIndia’sself-employed.phenomenal transformation from an impoverished nation in 1947 into an emerging global power whose $3 trillion economy is Asia’s third largest has turned it into a major exporter of things like software and vaccines. Millions have escaped poverty into a growing, aspirational middle class as its high-skilled sectors have soared. “It’s extraordinary—a poor country like India wasn’t expected to succeed in such sectors,” said Nimish Adhia, an economics professor at Manhattanville College. This year, the economy is forecast to expand at a 7.4 percent annual pace, according to the International Monetary Fund, making it one of world’s fastest growing. But even as India’s economy swells, so has joblessness. The unemployment rate remains at 7 percent to 8 percent in recent months. Only 40 percent of working age Indians are employed, down from 46% five years ago, the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) says. “If you look at a poor person in 1947 and a poor person now, they are far more privileged today. However if you look at it between the haves and the have nots, that chasm has grown,” said Gayathri Vasudevan, chairperson of LabourNet, a social enterprise.“WhileIndia continues to grow well, that growth is not generating enough jobs—crucially, it is not creating enough good quality jobs,” said Mahesh Vyas, chief executive at CMIE. Only 20 percent of jobs in India are in the formal sector, with

Eagle Watch . . . continued from A16 How

By Malou Talosig-Bartolome FoR eIgN ministers of the Association of southeast Asian Nations (Asean) debated extensively last week about the deteriorating peace and order in Myanmar, but they could not agree on how to deal with the junta, which has been undermining the integrity of the regional bloc.

Tito Genova Valiente annoTaTions

Dr. Fernando T. Aldaba is Professor of Economics and former Dean of the School of Social Sciences at Ateneo de Manila University. Clearly, our indigent seniors are among the most vulnerable in our society. They have no savings or any source of income and for many of them, no relatives around to support them. The 2015 Census of Population data shows that close to 10 percent of all Filipinos aged 65 years and above are living alone. A report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) had the same observation—that older persons are particularly vulnerable to economic insecurity, as well as poverty, with limited options for escape. The report noted that on average, the poverty level for individuals over 75 years old across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries is 14.7 percent, which is 3.5 percent higher than the poverty level among 66 to 75-year-olds. The “oldest-old” or those aged 80 years or over are more likely to have spent their savings and are most in need of age-appropriate health and long-term personal care services.Thisis why we echo the recent call of Neda Secretary Arsie Balisacan for the private sector to hire more senior citizens, considering that life expectancies continue to lengthen. In the United Kingdom, where I studied, one would often find seniors manning the tills as cashiers in drug stores, pharmacies and groceries. The same can happen here. Though our lolos and lolas may no longer be as agile as younger folk, many of them are still qualified for several types of work. Some are even willing to continue learning and gain new skills. The Philippine Statistics Authority notes that there are 12,336,355 Filipinos who are 60 years and older as of May 2020, representing 11.31 percent of the estimated 109,035,343 population of the Philippines at the time. According to the DSWD, there are 4,079,669 indigent senior citizens who are receiving P500 social pension every month this year. The number is constantly increasing—from a mere 930,222 in 2015, it went up to 3,203,731 beneficiaries in 2021. These benefits for our seniors, while small, can go a long way in addressing their everyday needs. They made a lot of sacrifices in their lives to care for their children and loved ones so we must constantly find ways to give back to them.

Those years from the Fall of the Roman empire to the birth of the Italian Renaissance from 500 to 1500 AD (these are estimates, of course) have always impacted our understanding of histories and civilizations. Popularly known as the “Dark Ages,” a term that makes use of the light-and-darkness binary, said periodization has undergone modern and postmodern readings. one of the main critiques around the Dark Ages situate the shadowed days around Christianity vis-a-vis what historians define as the “apogee” of Muslim civilization.

The government is banking on technology, a rare bright spot, to create new jobs and opportunities. Two decades ago, India became an outsourcing powerhouse as companies and call centers boomed. An explosion of start-ups and digital innovation aims to recreate that success—“India is now home to 75,000 startups in the 75th year of independence and this is only the beginning,” Minister of Commerce, Piyush Goyal, tweeted recently. More than 740,000 jobs have been created via start-ups, a 110 percent jump over the last six years, his ministry said. There’s still a long way to go, in educating and training a labor force qualified for such work. Another worry is the steady retreat of working women in India—from a high of nearly 27 percent in 2005 to just over 20 percent in 2021, according to World Bank data. system for disaster response (the virtual operations center), a cluster mechanism for multi-stakeholder coordination, and a financing conduit. While these platforms and systems are far from perfect, they have been operational—some for even more than five years. They are like pieces of a puzzle waiting to be put together in specific programs. At the same time, humanitarian assistance agencies may be able to tap into these frameworks during disasters. Thus, this shock-responsive social protection system that is linked to humanitarian assistance is really the way to go!

THE supplier of the 39,583 laptops for public school teachers on Thursday said it is willing to face any probe, stress ing that the units it delivered to the Department of Education (DepEd) meet “all” technical specifications imposed by the government. We are ready and willing to participate in any proceedings where we will be given the oppor tunity to show that our product is reliable and capable for its intend ed use,” the joint venture (JV) of Sunwest Construction and Devel opment Corporation (SCDC) and LDLA Marketing & Trading Inc. (LDLA) said in a news statement.

A MID the expected increase in the volume of vehicles in the metropolis once face-to-face classes resume in some schools this month, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) an nounced the reimplementation of the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program (UVVRP) or number coding scheme from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on weekdays except holidays. M MDA Acting Chairman Engr. Carlo Dimayuga said that was agreed upon by the Metro Manila Council (MMC), composed of the Metro Manila mayors, in a meeting through MMDA Resolution No. 22-14 Series of 2022. C urrently, the scheme is imple mented from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Under the scheme, vehicles with li cense plates ending in 1 and 2 are prohib ited on Monday, 3 and 4 on Tuesday, 5 and 6 on Wednesday, 7 and 8 on Thursday, 9 and 0 on Friday during the coding hours. D imayuga said the reimplementa tion of the number coding scheme will reduce traffic volume by 20 percent during the morning and afternoon/ evening peak hours. B efore the Covid-19 pandemic, the average number of vehicles plying Edsa daily was at 405,000. Based on the lat est vehicle volume count conducted by the MMDA Traffic Engineering Center on August 4, approximately 387,000 vehicles traversed Edsa. The volume is expected to balloon to 436,000 or higher than the prepandemic level. From August 15 to 17, we will start the dry run and will only remind mo torists of the expanded number coding scheme. From August 18 onwards, the MMDA will start apprehending and will issue traffic violation tickets on ground and through our non-contact apprehension policy,” Dimayuga said. E xempted from the UVVRP are public utility vehicles (including tri cycles), transport network vehicle ser vices, motorcycles, garbage trucks, fuel trucks, marked government vehicles, fire trucks, ambulances, marked media vehicles, and motor vehicles carrying essential and/or perishable goods. Meanwhile, existing number cod ing ordinances of the respective local government units will prevail on sec ondary roads. The MMC, composed of the 17 local government units of Metro Manila, is the governing body and policy-making body of the MMDA. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco A18 Friday, August 12, 2022

‘Heads may roll’ in recalled sugar imports fiasco–Palace

T hey maintained that the lap tops are “competitively priced and perform according to their intended use” and are “fully com pliant with all technical specifi cations” provided by DepEd and the Procurement Service-Depart ment of Budget and Management (PS-DBM). ThePS-DBM solicited bids for the supply and delivery of laptop computers with very specific tech nical requirements. As qualified bidders, we made an offer and won the comprehensive and competi tive bidding fair and square. As of early this year, all units have been delivered to DepEd regional offices throughout the Philip pines,” the supplier said. T he supplier added that the package came with required speci fications, taking into account the cost of the unit, peripherals, software, commercial grade dura bility, comprehensive 36-month warranty and technical support anywhere in the Philippines, in cluding nationwide delivery and otherThisadd-ons. alsoincludes customiza tion of the items/units as required by DepEd. The public should also note that the Dell Latitude 3420 laptops delivered to the govern ment were custom-built direct from the factory and according to the requirements needed by DepEd and therefore cannot be easily equated to a regular offthe-shelf consumer unit. It is in accurate and unfair to say that the offered price is for the laptops alone,” they stressed. T hey explained that while the JV was contracted to supply the equivalent of a 10th-generation processor, they said that they actually delivered the 11th-gen eration processor, which was the “latest” generation at the time of the“project. Ourclients can also attest that we have been faithfully hon oring our after-sales support and warranty and have been aiding end-users through our after-sales partners,” it added. A s to the audit findings, the group said it is not aware of any conclusive or final Audit Report that has been published by the Commission on Audit. Our companies have a com bined experience spanning more than a decade and we intend to protect our respective repu tations as honest and ethical business enterprises,” the group stressed. Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

Balancing act ANGELES explained that Marcos decided to defer additional impor tation of sugar until the harvest season next month to protect the interest of all concerned stake holders. Itis a balancing act. The im portation has to be carefully stud ied to protect both the consumer against the rising prices of basic commodities while ensuring at the same time, that we do not destroy the local industry,” Angeles said.

Citing the Creative Economy Coun cil of the Philippines (CECP), Pe ñaranda said there are approxi mately 2 to 3 million creative freelancers working locally, while 1.5 million creatives handle inter nationalWhileprojects. thePhilippines is con sidered to be the top exporter of creative services in the ASEAN region, our total creative exports only amount to 2 percent market share in Asia-Pacific. This presents ample room for growth and an op portunity for us to invest especially in IP-based creative goods and ser vices,” Peñaranda said. M eanwhile, firms such as ShootPH, Newzoo and AcadArena illustrated the status of respective creative sectors that they are asso ciated with. F or ShootPH founders Steve Vesagas, Christ Thorp, and Steven Marolho, the current advertising landscape underscores the poten tial of the Philippines to compete against market leaders such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. A ccording to Marolho, foreign film production revenues from short-form content alone reached $40 million in Thailand. T horp, for his part, noted, “The Philippines is already well-placed to support and service the growth of re mote production, especially with the ease of communications in English.” He added that with access to bigger international projects, the Philippine crews will grow their skillset and the overall platform will be enhanced, positioning it as a “production hub go-to.” T he two-day online conference recognized some of the largest cre ative sectors in the country such as film, game development, and es ports. The event also recognized creative segments with the poten tial to grow with necessary institu tional support, such as type design. Andrea E. San Juan

P ress Secretary Beatrix “Trixie” Cruz-Angeles reiterated the sup posed Resolution No. 4 of the Sugar Regulatory Board was invalid since it was not authorized by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr., who sits as chairman of the Sugar Regulatory Board (SRB). As such chairman, he sets the date of any meetings or conven ing of the Sugar Regulatory Board and its agenda. No such meeting was authorized by the President or such a resolution likewise, was not authorized,” Angeles said in a press conference on Thursday.

MALACAÑANG said “heads may roll” over the unauthorized importation order for 300,000 metric tons (MR) of sugar issued by the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) last Wednesday.

Ample budget sought for creative sector’s devt under new law NCR mayors OK return of codingnumberscheme Continued on A4

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas & Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

DEPED LAPTOP SUPPLIER WILLING TO FACE PROBE

A LLOTTING significant fund ing in the 2022 budget for the timely implementation of the newly enacted Creative In dustries Development Act will al low the Philippines to cash in on the rich diversity of its creative talent, which are widely regarded as glob ally competitive. “ The passage of the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act, while a watershed moment in our creative history, is our country playing catch-up to a creative future that is being enjoyed as a creative present by many of our neighbors in ASEAN and around the globe … We are finally investing in Filipino talent that we have long taken for granted or left to their own devic es,” Pangasinan 4th District Rep. Christopher De Venecia said during the Creative Futures 2022 digital conference. TheDepartment of Trade and In dustry (DTI) said in a statement on Thursday that De Venecia hopes the Creative Industries Development Act or Republic Act 11904 will be pri oritized for immediate implemen tation and shall receive significant funding in the 2023 budget follow ing President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr.’s first State of the Na tion Address on July 25. A mong the objectives De Vene cia highlighted is forging a wellarticulated education system that fosters creativity and innovation. According to the lawmaker, this can be achieved by building closer links between the academe and industry to avoid job-skills mis match, supporting creative educa tors, and incentivizing academic institutions. Forhispart, DTI Assistant Secre tary Glenn Peñaranda, Officer-inCharge for DTI’s Trade Promotions Group (TPG), underlined the eco nomic potential of the Philippine creative industries. Peñaranda highlighted oppor tunities for the creative sector as freelancing becomes mainstream.

Lacked authority IN the resolution posted on the SRA website, Agriculture Undersecre tary Leocadio S. Sebastian signed on behalf of the President. T he issuance would have allowed the importation of 150,000 MT of sugar for industrial users and an other 150,000 MT for producers and traders to help lower the soar ing price of sweetener in the local market due to supply issues. A ngeles stressed that Sebastian lacked authority to convene the SRB on hisHisown.(Sebastian) assignment as the alternate of the President is merely to be present in those meetings that the President can not attend. It is not a delegation of authority to call any meetings or to sign any resolutions in the absence of the President’s awareness that such a resolution is to be issued,” Angeles explained.

T he Palace official said the mat ter may have already been discussed by Marcos and Sebastian, when they met on Wednesday evening. “ There was an opportunity for him to answer it all, be it informally. So, with an investigation, he has to formally answer,” Angeles said. Opportunity to explain ASIDE from Sebastian, SRA Board Vice Chairperson Hermenegildo R. Serafica, SRB Miller’s Representa tive Roland B. Beltran, and SRB Planter’s Representative Aurelio Gerardo J. Valderrama, Jr., also signed the document. A ngeles said all of those who signed the controversial resolution are now also under investigation. “An investigation is ongoing to determine whether any act that would cause the President to lose trust and confidence in his officials can be found, or if there is malice or negligence involved. In such a case, if such findings are made, then the only determination left will be how many heads are going to roll,” An geles said. In a Viber message, Beltran said he welcomed the probe, as it will give him the chance to explain his side. This will give me the oppor tunity to clear my name in accor dance with due process of law, and to punish those responsible for the fiasco,” Beltran said. For his part, Valderrama de clined to comment on the matter. BusinessMirror also tried to get the side of Sebastian and Serafica on the matter, but as of press time both have yet to issue any reply. A ngeles assured that all of those involved will be given due process. We will look at the reason why it appeared to be rushed. They con vened without the knowledge of the President. They will be given the chance to explain their side,” Angeles said. S he said the investigation may result in the preventive suspension of those involved or their immedi ate replacement.

“Certainly, adversaries of ABSCBn at all levels of government will try to sabotage this partnership. In fact, we are already seeing this in Congress, as some congressmen are pushing for inquiries into the deal. However, this deal is not a franchise issue, as this involves no transfer of controlling stakes requiring congressional approval,” r idon said. He added that Congress should focus on more important public concerns, such as economic recovery and social programs, “instead of wasting time inquiring on content sharing deals between media entities.”

BusinessMirrorEditor: Jennifer A. Ng Companies B1Friday, August 12, 2022

TV5 shares THE acquisition of TV5 shares signals a new era for ABS-CBn, which had lost its bid to renew its Congressional franchise in 2020. “We are excited with this partnership as we see the opportunity to help TV5 grow and strengthen its free to air network. For ABS, it presents a fantastic platform for us to achieve synergies in production content and talent management as well as maximizing our content delivery,” ABS-CBn Chairman Mark LopezAsidesaid.from this initial transaction, the two groups will also execute a convertible note agreement, which will allow ABS-CBn to acquire additional primary common shares in TV after 8 years of the issuance of the P1.84-billion convertible note. Once executed, this will allow ABS-CBn to increase its equity in TV to 49.92 percent. The proceeds of the subscription in the primary common shares and the convertible note in the total amount of P4 billion will fund the capital expenditures and operating expenses of TV5 in pursuing the enhancements of its content and programming and public service offerings. “We welcome the entry and investment of ABS-CB n in TV5, as ABS-CBn has always been the leading developer and provider of Filipino-related entertainment content not only in the Philippines but overseas as well. Our companies have always had these cherished values of providing top and quality programs in the service of the Filipino people and together we believe we can achieve this in greater measure and success,” PLDT Chairman Manuel Pangilinan said. ABS-CBn President Carlo Katigbak said the partnership is consistent with the strategic intention of ABSCBn “to evolve into a storytelling company whose goal is to reach as wide an audience as possible.” “In partnership with TV5, we look forward to reaching viewers both on owned platforms and through other broadcast partners, thereby enriching the Philippine creative industry. We hope the industry evolves from being highly competitive to increasingly collaborative, which benefits all stakeholders in the long run,” he said. Public policy think tank Infrawatch views the transaction as a “leap forward” for TV5, allowing it to compete head on with GMA network Inc. for advertising revenues, talent, and programming.

Core net income after tax for the second quarter rose 48 percent P2.1 billion from the P689-million loss in the first quarter. It said growth was evident across all its businesses, especially with the recovery in its airline, mall and hotel operations, as well as contributions from its core investments. VG Cabuag

Continued on B2 Fortune Life inks MOA with GMADII JG Summit posts ₧2.7-B loss in H1

Jollibee income grows

One of the deals involves the acquisition by ABS-CBn of 34.99 percent of total voting and outstanding capital stock in TV5 network Inc., a PLDT unit, for P2.16 billion. Meanwhile, the other deal involves the P2.86-billion investment by Cignal Cable Corp., a PLDT unit, into Sky Cable Corp. This transaction represents 38.88 percent of the total issued and outstanding capital stock in SkyAsideCable.from these two transactions, the two groups are also executing—within the next eight years—other deals amounting to P11.5 billion, including the issuance of several convertible notes and debt instruments.Thetransactions represent how ABS-CBn values its roots as a freeto-air television network, while for PLDT, its focus on paid cable TV subscription services.

PLDT, ABS-CBN ink deals that will bolster operations

revenues for the first half reached P151.1 billion, higher than last year’s P128.14 billion and 95 percent of its pre-pandemic level. For the second quarter alone, its revenues reached P84.4 billion, higher by 39 percent from last year’s P60.5 billion. “Our overall business has benefitted from the reopening of economy as evidenced by the sequential improvement on our operating results on a quarterly basis. We are cognizant that significant challenges remain in the near term with the extraordinary cost pressures, rising interest rates and peso devaluation,” said JG Summit President and CEO Lance Y. Gokongwei.Gokongwei said the company’s business units have implemented measures on how to mitigate the margin erosion through selective pricing actions and productivity initiatives.“Given the strong demand for products and services despite the high inflationary environment in the first half, we remain optimistic that further easing of restrictions especially on international travel as well as the resumption of face-to-face classes in the second half will sustain the topline growth momentum.”

JG Summit Holdings Inc., the holding firm of the Gokongwei Group, said it recorded a P2.7-billion loss in the first half, from P936.69 million in attributable income last year. The company attributed this to the adverse impact of the significant peso depreciation on the company’s foreign currency-denominated debt. The company said it saw “substantial improvements” in both topline and core profits in the secondConsolidatedquarter.

Cignal-Sky deal ME A n W HILE , the second transaction involves the acquisition by Cignal Cable of 38.88 percent of the shares in Sky Cable from Sky Vision Corp., ABS-CBn, and Lopez Inc. Aside from the initial buy-in, the parties also executed a debt instruments agreement, whereby Sky Vision agreed to issue a P4.39-billion exchangeable debt instrument to Cignal.This gives Cignal the option to acquire as much as 61.12 percent of the shares in Sky Cable after 8 years from its issuance. The said instrument also provides for the sale of a P250-million convertible note to Cignal, representing 1.84 percent of the outstanding capital stock.

F O r T u n E Life Insurance Company, Inc. (Fortune Life) represented by its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Emma M. Abad, and the Guardians Magistrate Advocators for Democracy International Inc. (GMADII) led by its Founding Mother, Dr. Estela G. Bulacan, inked a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on the insurance protection of GMADII members on August 8, 2022 at Okada Manila, Parañaque City. Co-signatories of the MOA from GMADII were Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) u s ec. Alfred Bayan and Atty. Eugene Alfaras, Legal Counsel. GMADII has over five (5) million members from different chapters. The MOA provides one-year group insurance coverage of P50,000 against accident and P5,000 against death due to natural cause for GMADII members.Partofthe program was the induction of new Elite members of GMADII whose oath-taking ceremony was led by DILG us ec. Bayan. Fortune Life Branch Manager u l ysses Elmundo expressed his appreciation for being part of the Elite members of the organization and introduced the importance of life insurance. The Elite members pledge for the insurance coverage of the rest of the GMADII members. Fortune Life congratulates GMADII for their successful projects in helping the community and for the continuous growth of the organization through their new members. The company looks forward to a fruitful and long-lasting partnership with GMADII as their new master policyholder.

By VG Cabuag @villygc LOCAL fast food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. said its income grew more than threefold to P5.09 billion in the first half from last year’s P1.12 billion on the back of its record-high system-wide sales in the second System-widequarter.sales, a measure of all sales to consumers, both from company-owned and franchised stores, rose 35 percent to P133.12 billion in January to June from the previous year’s P98.3 billion. For the April to June period, system-wide sales rose 45 percent to P73.15 billion from the previous P50.51 billion. Income for the quarter almost tripled to P2.78 billion from the previous P976 million. “We are encouraged to see further improvement in dine-in sales while at the same time sustaining growth in our delivery business. Outside the Philippines, our China business saw double-digit decline in sales as our restaurants particularly in Shanghai were closed temporarily for most of the quarter due to heightened Covidrelated restrictions,” Jollibee CEO Ernesto Tanmantiong said. Same store sales for the Philippine business increased by half in the second quarter as all brands registered strong double-digit growth on the recovery of demand following the easing of Covid-related restrictions in many parts of the country. The international business grew by 7 percent 29 percent decline in the China’s same store sales growth due to Covid-related restrictions. north America grew 7.5 percent, Europe/ Middle East/other parts of Asia rose 14 percent, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf posted a 16-percent growth and while SuperFoods recorded a 50-percent“Theincrease.softness in China’s sales was however, offset by other international markets, such as north America and EMEAA particularly in Vietnam at 50.9 percent growth for Jollibee and SuperFoods, which continued to grow well with robust same store sales growth,” Tanmantiong“Wesaid.are very confident about the strong recovery of our China business in the months ahead, faster sales and profit growth of our other businesses abroad and sustained strong growth of our Philippine business.”

by more than threefold Fortune Life e V P-C o o e m ma Abad (right) and GMADII Founding Mother Dr. e s tela Bulacan lead the M o A signing providing insurance protection for GMADII members. Co-signatories of GMADII are DILG u s ec. Alfred Bayan and Atty. e u gene Alfaras, Legal Counsel. Bernard Tes Ta Photo shows (from right) Fortune Life Branch and Agency Managers ulysses and Leticia elmundo, Branch Sales Assistant erlinda Diaz, FVP-Group Sales and related Contracts Department (GSrCD) Virgilio Aquino, DILG usec. Alfred Bayan, Fortune Life eVP-Coo emma Abad, GMADII Founding Mother Dr. estela Bulacan, AVP-Corporate Communications Division Floreda Constantino, executive Assistant to the oeVP-Coo Michelle Benzonan, and AVP-GSrCD Carlos Frederic Lago. Bernard TesTa BusinessMirror file phoTo By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan PLDT Inc. and ABS-CBN Corp. have entered into two separate multibillion-peso deals that will allow the two groups to build a bigger media, broadband, and cable empire.

The company generated a new high of P3.1 billion in operating income in the second quarter, double the level a year ago driven by the strong profit performance of the Philippine business. Operating margin improved by 2.1 percentage points to 5.9 percent from an improvement in gross profit and total expenses as a percentage of total revenue.During the first half, the company had 230 new stores, 50 of which were in the Philippines, 38 in China, 16 in north America and 18 in other rgions. SuperFoods, CBTL and Milksha opened 47, 52 and 9 stores, respectively. The group, however, closed a total of 130 stores during the period: 31 in the Philippines and 99 abroad.

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario W HILE credit scores help banks and other lending institutions manage risks as they extend loans to those who need it, the existing system leaves many women unable to access financing, according to experts.InanAsian Development Blog, credit scoring expert Dean Caire and ADB Private Sector Operations Department Principal Investment Specialist Sabine Spohn said credit scores must be revised to help women Theentrepreneurs.lackofaccess to credit, Caire and Spohn said, has left a $1.7-trillion finance gap among women who own micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in emerging economies.“Agreatcredit score is crucial to secure loans. But traditional credit scoring models put many women at a disadvantage. It’s time for a new model,” the authors said. Caire and Spohn said credit scores are based on historic data that often favors borrowers who have land since these are often used as collateral for loans. However, they said, in many parts of the world, including Asia and the Pacific, women encounter limitations in owning land or having property titles in their name. Caire and Spohn said this creates a “Catch 22” situation where women who do not have collateral cannot build a credit history, thus earning for them low credit scores. “To overcome this challenge, it is imperative to identify new and ‘alternative’ models that use sources of data that give insight into the financial lives and capacity of the unbanked so that financial institutions can offer them access to appropriately designed credit products, without the need for credit history and collateral,” Caire and Spohn said. They recommended that lenders turn to “new data streams” that can be used as a proxy for payment and credit history for women. This will make these lending models data-driven, rules-based and risk appropriate.Thesedata streams include cash flows passing through a mobile wallet; purchase of agricultural inputs as a share of the income from the harvested crops, or purchasing behavior on e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, PayPal, and Amazon. Caire and Spohn also said lenders must consider the acceptance of some risk taking since this will require them to move away from traditional lending requirements.

Uy’s Udenna: Banks withdraw default notice

World

STATE-RUN Social Security System’s (SSS) profit or net income in the first half of this year dropped by 21.4 percent to P10.49 billion as its expenses grew faster than its revenues. The latest SSS condensed statement of comprehensive income showed its end-June profit slide from P13.34 billion a year ago. Its revenues or total income in the first semester grew 8.53 percent to P148.98 billion from P137.27 billion in the same period last year.

Banking&Finance WB backs PHL digitalization of revenue agencies–Diokno

Broken down, its service and business income as of end-June rose to P144.49 billion from P133.49 billion. In the same period, its gains also climbed to P4.396 billion from P3.44 billion a year ago while its other non-operating income plunged to P91.5 million from P336.27 million. On the other hand, its expenses in the first six months of the year surged by 11.75 percent to P138.49 billion from P123.93 billion a year ago. Bulk of the total expenses in the six-month period went to benefit payments to members and pensioners which stood at P123.897 billion, up from 7.06 percent from P115.73 billion a year ago. The rest were non-cash expenses (P10.58 billion), personnel services (P3.15 billion), maintenance and other operating expenses (P762.03 million), and financial expenses (P101.03 million). In 2021, the SSS recorded a net loss of P843.9 billion, almost double the net loss recorded a year ago at P424.37 billion due to the increase in policy reserves for future liabilities as the agency adopted the Philippine Financial Reporting Standards (PFRS) 4. SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Michael G. Regino earlier assured their members and pensioners that the reported losses do not affect SSS’ current cash flow and that the institution remains financially viable of providing benefits to its stakeholders. SSS also said its fund life is estimated to last until 2054. Bernadette D. Nicolas

By Bernadette D. Nicolas @BNicolasBM THE World Bank is keen on extending support to further digitalize the Philippine government’s revenue agencies and to modernize civil service, the Department of Finance (DOF) said. revenue agencies and modernizing civil service in line with the President’s goal of rightsizing the bureaucracy,” Diokno said in a tweet on Monday, following the courtesy callMoreover,meeting. the DOF said it is also looking to tap available support from the bank for natural disasters, including the recent Magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck NorthwesternTheLuzon.World Bank is already supporting the Bureau of Customs’ Philippine Customs Modernization Program by extending US$88.28 million in financing. The project focuses on transitioning from a largely manual and paper-based organization to a modernized BOC, achieving global standards and full modernization by 2024.Forhis part, Diop said the bank has continued to increase its support to the country, proving the continued strong partnership between the World Bank and the Philippines.

T HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and police authorities arrested in July 2022 a Cameroonian national in the act of selling counterfeit US dollar banknotes and seized from him 14 pieces of fake 100-dollar bills. Fonki Gregory Abueh, 47, a resident of Makati, was arrested in an entrapment operation conducted by the Quezon City Police Anti-Cybercrime Team and the BSP’s Payments and Currency Investigation GroupThe(PCIG).buy-bust operation was conducted in Taguig as the BSP reminded the public to be vigilant against counterfeit currency. Abueh was charged before the Taguig City Prosecutor’s Office with illegal possession and use of false treasury or banknotes and other instruments of credit under the Revised Penal Code. Abueh also faces separate charges of swindling/ estafa under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10175) for defrauding an individual in a financial investment online scam. The BSP urged the public to report any information on currency counterfeiting to the nearest police station or to the BSP PCIG (pcig@ bsp.gov.ph or telephone numbers 02 8988-4833 and 02 8926-5092).

Over the last three administrations since 2021, the bank supported the government’s 68 program and project loans amounting to US$14.9 billion. Currently, the bank is supporting the implementation of 15 ongoing program and project loans in the areas of transport, rural development, disaster risk reduction and management, social protection, customs modernization, and Covid-19 response amounting to US$4.96 billion.Loans in the pipeline under the current administration include various programs and projects on health and nutrition, education, renewable energy, fisheries, transport, tourism, agriculture, and further reforms in the finance sector.

BusinessMirror Editor: Dennis D. Estopace • Friday, August 12, 2022 B3www.news.businessmirror@gmail.com

Association membership engagement plan

UDENNA Corp., the holding firm of Davao businessman Dennis Uy, on Thursday said the default notice sent to its affiliate Clark Global City Corp. has been withdrawn by the banks.

Closing the gender gap in agriculture could potentially raise yields on their farms by 20 to 30 percent, thereby raising agricultural output of developing countries by up to 4 percent, and the number of hungry people in the world by up to 17 percent.A2013 study by ADB and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) showed women in the Philippines who own land only account for a little over 10 percent of all landowners in the country. This means that if the country has a total population of approximately 92 million, based on the 2010 census of population, there are a little over 9.2 million women landowners in the country. The Philippines was second only to Malaysia where women landowners comprise about 12 to 13 percent of the total number of landowners. In other Asean countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, women comprise less than 10 percent of the total number of landowners. The report said more than 15 percent but less than 20 percent of all landowners in countries like Tanzania, United Kingdom, and Argentina were women. Those countries with women landowners comprising above 20 percent but less than 30 percent were France, Spain, Chile an Ecuador. Botswana was the only country cited by the ADB with women landowners comprising more than 30 percent of the population who owned land.

The experts added that extending loans to women must be done through products that do not require land as collateral. Lenders must use alternative data as a proxy for repayment capacities. “Building accessible, transparent, and affordable data sets with borrower consent is key to understanding and offering credit to the unbanked population,” Caire and Spohn“Buildingsaid. trust among women borrowers in new digital products and in the financial service provider itself will be necessary. Until women trust and use new digital products, the gender gap in access to finance will persist and banks will find it hard to make the business case for financing women,” they also said. In 2018, Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) Senior Research Fellow Roehlano M. Briones said women in agriculture and rural areas face higher barriers in gaining access to productive resources and opportunities compared to men, namely for land, livestock, labor, education, extension, finance, and technology.

BOC-Subic foils ₧46.28-M cigarette smuggling from SG Fake dollar seller nabbed SSS net income in H1 drops 21.4% to ₧10.49 billion

By Henry Empeño SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—The Bureau of Customs (BOC) in this free port foiled an attempt to smuggle some P46.28 million worth of cigarettes into the country when it seized a container brought in from Singapore on Thursday.BOC-Port of Subic said in a statement that a total of 1,122 master cases of Marvels filter cigarettes was in the container which was declared as containing fabrics. The contraband was discovered after BOC-Subic received derogatory information on the shipment, prompting Subic District Collector Maritess T. Martin to issue a pre-lodgement control order (PLCO) that allowed BOC to exercise jurisdiction over the imported goods. Upon further investigation, it was also found out that the consignee, Proline Logistics Philippines Inc., was not registered in Subic as an importer of foreign cigarettes and tobacco products. The firm was not also on the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) list for registered importers of cigarette brands. Martin subsequently issued a warrant of seizure and detention against the shipment for violation of National Tobacco Administration (NTA) Memorandum Circular No. 03 and Republic Act No. 10863, or the Customs Modernization Tariff Act, BOC-Subic said in aThisstatement.wasnot the first time that BOCSubic flagged a shipment for Proline Logistics.BOC-Subic said it also seized two shipments worth P84.97 million for said consignee last month. Along with another container consigned to Russhi Knish Consumer, Proline’s shipments that were seized in July comprised 3,160 master cases of cigarettes that were worth a total of P131.14Districtmillion.Collector Martin said the Port of Subic will continue strengthening its border protection efforts against the entry of illegal goods into the country.

“With this matter behind us, all parties involved remain committed to working together and cultivating their shared value through an impactful partnership,” the companyUdennasaid. received a default notice on July Banks22.led by BDO Unibank Inc., earlier confirmed that Udenna had failed to pay $4 million in debt related to an airport lease agreement. The default was in relation to its obligations under the master lease agreement between Clark International Airport Corp. and Global Gateway Development Corp,, the developer of the properties in the former US military base in Pampanga. Clark Global City earlier assured BDO, the country’s lender, that it is in the process of updating its obligations to its lessor, CIAC, on or before JulyBDO27. said the Clark Global City debt is secured and a default will not have a material adverse effect on the financial condition and business of the bank. VG Cabuag

The Washington-based lender is the country’s third largest Official Development Assistance (ODA) partner, with loans and grants amounting to around US$6.86 million or 23.38 percent of the country’s total ODA receipts.

‘Revise credit scores to help women entreps’

Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno met with World Bank Group Country Director Ndiame Diop on Monday to discuss further alignment and expansion of cooperation between the Philippines and the World Bank based on the Marcos administration’s socioeconomic priorities. Duringthe meeting, Diokno said he aims to digitalize half of all retail payments and onboard 70 percent of the adult population to the formal financial system by 2023, a goal he set when he was still governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Apart from this, the finance chief said the government intends to pursue the civil modernization project of the Civil Service Commission which will be critical in efforts to modernize the government and rightsize the bureaucracy. “Iamvery pleased to hear of the World Bank’s willingness to extend support for further digitalizing our Octavio PeraltaAssociation

MEMBERSHIP engagement sits right in the middle of the US-based Marketing General, Inc.’s five-stage membership lifecycle framework which consists of awareness, recruitment, engagement, retention and reinstatement. Being in the middle of the lifecycle is auspicious as membership engagement determines success for the association if done well and failure if neglected. In my March 16, 2017 column, “Association Membership Lifecycle,” I wrote that engagement is when new members feel they belong with the association. It also means member interaction with the association—be it a visit to the website, a completed survey, a product purchase, or even a phone call—is continuously happening. Studies show the most likely member not to renew is a member in their first year. The second is one who has not availed of any benefit or has not been engaged with the association. Hence, the need to devise a membership engagement plan is imperative for associations.Here’sayear-long engagement plan of the US-based ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) from an article written by Joe Syrowik, director of membership at ASCD, which proved that a well-thoughtout and executed engagement plan for first-year members makes strategicDaysense.1:Welcome email Week 2: Membership card, minisurvey to ask, “Why did you join?” Week 2: Monthly: New member e-newsletter highlighting a specific benefit each month Month 1: E-mail coupon good for 20 percent off purchase at the association’s store Month 2: Monthly: Monthly journal with cover wrap depicting a unique benefit each month Month 3: Three free months of online professional development program Month 4: Welcome phone call Month 6: Free association notepadMonth 7: Mini-survey to ask, “How are we doing?” Month 8: E-mail coupon good for 20 percent off purchase from association’s store Month 11: Mini-survey to ask, “Are you a better professional now?”Month 12: Journal cover wrap, “This is your last edition.” To pay for its implementation, ASCD shifted some funds that had been invested in member recruitment efforts into renewal of new members. The shift cost was 10 percent—a relatively small amount considering the recruitment budget was 10 times larger than the renewalIndividually,budget. each tactic is not revolutionary. However, when each became part of an overall member experience, the combined impact increased the conversion rate of first-year members into second-year members. In addition, members did not know beforehand that they were going to receive the items as part of their benefits. Instead, the strategy was for new members to receive them unannounced so they were perceived as added perks. The plan, although simple, required a fair amount of work as well as a coordinated effort to implement. Of equal importance is the commitment and continued oversight by the marketing department to ensure the plan was an ongoing reality. It took six months for the first group of new members to go through the engagement experience before ASCD realized an increase in the conversion rate of 12 percent. This increase resulted in 6,000 more members being retained over one year, a quantity large enough to help return ASCD to growth. Octavio Peralta is currently the executive director of the Global Compact Network Philippines and founder and volunteer CEO of the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives, the “association of associations.” PCAAE is holding its Associations Summit 10 (AS10) on November 23 and 24, 2022. E-mail: bobby@pcaae.org

In a statement, the affected loan under the omnibus loan and security agreement involving Clark Global City, as principal borrower, has already been reinstated.

HoroscopeToday’s By Eugenia Last CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Rudy Pankow, 24; Imani Hakim, 29; Cara Delevingne, 30; Yvette Nicole Brown, 51. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Your mind is sharp, and very little will escape your notice this year. Dive into the things that bring you joy, and expand your friendships, horizons and expectations. Use your ability to capture what’s happening around you, and add your Midas touch to enhance whatever you decide to pursue. Think big, but keep your costs down in order to prosper. Your numbers are 1, 12, 23, 25, 34, 39, 44. ARIES (March 21-April 19): Put your best foot forward. Enjoy the company of people who share the same pastimes and goals. Make personal enlightenment, self-improvement and romance your priorities. Don’t wait for people and opportunities to come your way; do your part and make things happen.

The Universal Crossword/Edited by David Steinberg Solution to today’s puzzle: PHOTOS BY DINNA CHAN VASQUEZ AND JULIANA VASQUEZ

Relationships

Continued on

doors

H: Avoid conflicts; work behind the scenes. HH: You can accomplish, but don’t rely on others. HHH: Focus and you’ll reach your goals. HHHH: Aim high; start new projects. HHHHH: Nothing can stop you; go for gold. 29 Clucking bird 31 Game with +2 cards 32 Result of a critical error? 36 Two-finger peace gesture 38 Thingamajig 40 Dulce de ___ 41 Short-term stock transactions 42 ___ Pray Love 43 Attracted to all genders, for short 44 Outer edge 45 Emergency prioritization 48 Syrian city at one end of the ancient Silk Road 51 Summery footwear item 54 Embitters 56 “Definitely!” 60 Hence 61 Piece of safety gear for a cyclist 62 Rip 63 Proxima Centauri, for one 64 University officials 65 E-mail folder DOWN 1 Meh 2 Scope 3 Have the last ___ 4 “You can figure it out” 5 Sugar, We’re Goin Down genre Type of eel Galena and bauxite Sporty car roof Enter slowly Moms and dads, slangily Ancient In the manner of 13 Actress Issa Heating tube Persuade with pressure Impulsive Make a Lego house, maybe 26 Radio personality Martinez Do’s and ___ 29 Homo sapiens Site that acquired an NFT marketplace in 2022 Hooting hatchling 33 Gather wool from 34 Saguaro and prickly pear 35 “De ___” (“You’re welcome,” in Spanish) 36 Goes up and down, say 37 Spoken word competitors 39 SZA album that shares a name with a PC key 43 Wrote 46 Fall flower 47 Wound that might require bandaging 48 Strange and unfamiliar 49 Tomato ___ (pizza sauce base) 50 Instrument in a church 52 ___ Whip (pineapple dessert) 53 Lead-in to “mater” 55 Put in order 56 Full Frontal With Samantha Bee network 57 Top 40 song 58 Sorority or alias letters 59 Milky Way visitors, e.g. ‘themeless sunday 8’ BY RAFAEL MUSA

tourists: Part 1

ACROSS 1 Susceptible to a scalp sunburn 5 Act overdramatically 10 Katy Perry hit with the lyric “Louder, louder than a lion” 14 Texter’s guffaw 15 Muffuletta meat 17 Share a border 18 Dessert featuring creme and ice cream 19 Note that tests a singer’s range 21 Facet 22 Attachment ___ (relationship analysis framework) 24 “Things aren’t looking good...” 28 ___ culpa

HHH LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Shine brightly and become a leader who makes a difference. Engage in what’s essential and will make a difference in your community or your family. Set standards and boundaries to ensure you get what you want at an affordable cost. HHH VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): An intelligent approach to getting others to see things your way will far exceed using force or emotional tactics. State your point of view and carry on, regardless of who decides to participate. HHH LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Put your money in a safe place and don’t share personal information. Consider what’s important to you. Take the road that allows you to focus on making your dreams come true. Personal improvement will boost your confidence and attract attention. HHHHH SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Do whatever it takes to get along. Be a good listener and mindful of others. Go with the flow, and you’ll find a path that feels right. Accommodating others will buy you time and help you work through differences amicably. HH SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Being patient, truthful and setting priorities that promote a happy, healthy lifestyle will motivate you to take care of unfinished business and to move on to pastimes that put a smile on your face. Love, romance and physical improvements are encouraged. HH CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Think about how you can improve your life without the fallout from loved ones who don’t want change. A slight adjustment will prompt someone you love to participate.

HHH TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Refuse to let anyone back you into a corner. Be honest about what you want; you’ll ward off getting stuck with someone else’s responsibilities. Don’t let the changes or choices others make ruin your day or your time with loved ones. HHHH GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Stabilize your future by working extra hours. Don’t give someone the chance to outmaneuver you. Take physical action, improve your reputation and recruit people who share your objective. HHHHH CANCER (June 21-July 22): Take a creative approach to how you do your job or handle responsibilities, and you will receive praise for your ingenuity. A partnership will develop between you and someone who shares your concerns.

By Dinna Chan Vasquez I N the past two years, I frequently said that once borders opened, the first country I would visit would be Singapore. It is one of my favorite cities in the world for a lot of reasons. I appreciate how everything is there and how efficiently things work. If you have the energy and the strength, you can walk and take the train or bus. You can also take Grab cars or taxis. The lines are orderly. Everything runs like clockwork. At the invitation of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), I, with five other members of the press, embarked on a familiarization tour of Singapore last September. The trip was in line with Singapore reopening its borders to tourists, and the state’s Made with Passion campaign which promotes local lifestyle brands that embody the Singapore spirit of turning possibilities into reality. I wrote about the requirements for traveling to Singapore on my Digital Life column (bit.ly/3SGzmM1). Make sure you’ve prepared all the necessary documents for a smoother airport experience. The trip to Singapore takes about three hours and a half and once you get to Changi Airport, you’ll be done in about 30 minutes max. This is one of the things I love about this state. Everything has been designed and created for efficiency.

Singapore tourism highlights local brands as it reopens to

Friday, August 12, 2022 • Editor: Gerard S. Ramos www.businessmirror.com.phBusinessMirror

HHH PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Share your feelings; you’ll change how others think. Show passion, and you’ll drum up interest in helping you make a difference. You’ll be most comfortable when allowed to do your own thing. HHH BIRTHDAY BABY: You are astute, impulsive and passionate. You are persistent and visionary.

HHHH AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Look over your options and consider what’s physically possible. It’s up to you to do the legwork required to take advantage of a unique opportunity. Don’t let envy or anger stand between you and what you are trying to achieve.

Since we arrived at past noon, the first order of business was lunch at Loo’s Hainanese Chicken Curry at Tiong Bahru Food Centre (30 Seng Poh Road). We were late so they ran out of food but luckily, there was still a stall nearby selling roasted meats and we went there for lunch. After lunch, we went around Tiong Bahru, which literally means “new cemetery.” I love the flats and shophouses in this area, which really used to be a burial ground. Tiong Bahru has been gentrified and is now a trendy place for young people and hipsters. There are murals painted by local artists depicting Singaporean life. My favorite is the one illustrating uncles sitting on benches and chairs with bird cages above them. This is called the bird corner. But easily the most eye-catching mural is Pasar and the Fortune Teller, which shows the market scene including Singaporean food and snacks. I was quite jealous going around Tiong Bahru because the place was so clean and beautiful. Even the alleys were Instagram-worthy. I wish we have neighborhoods like that in the Philippines. We went to Monument Lifestyle in Tiong Bahru (21 Yong Siak Street), a concept store that sells coffee and tea, clothes, footwear and jewelry. I had iced mocha and tried the bagel and cookies. Everything was excellent. Monument Lifestyle is only one of the places you can hang out when you go on a tour of Tiong Bahru. And here’s another thing I love about Singapore: When they say a place has air conditioning, it really is cool or cold in there. We were also supposed to visit Creamier (78 Yong Siak Street), which offers hand-crafted ice cream and coffee. Unfortunately, they were closed that day. Their best-selling flavors are roasted pistachio and sea salt Gula Melaka. After an afternoon at Tiong Bahru, we checked in at Holiday Inn Express Orchard, our hotel for the next five days. For dinner, we went to Po at The Warehouse Hotel (320 Havelock Road, Robertson Quay). This restaurant is modern Singaporean serving traditional dishes like laksa (a popular spicy noodle dish), popiah (a wrap-ityourself pancake with pork and vegetables much like our lumpia), hokkien mee (another noodle dish), beef rendang (a spicy beef stew) and congee in ways that can only be described as more refined and suitable for a younger palate. But you don’t go to Po just for the food. You go because of the ambiance and the cool interiors. For our second day in Singapore, STB booked a private boutique tour in Rumah Kim Choo (111 E Coast Road, #109), which gave us a glimpse of the food and dress of the Peranakan culture. The two-story shophouse at East Coast Road has B5

NADEE from Sri Lanka as seen on her vlog, which grabs millions of viewers with each entry.

MORISSETTE has taken to social media to promote the release of her new Bisaya single “Undangon Ta Ni,” which came out on all streaming platforms last August 1. n a slew of teaser photos and videos on her social-media accounts, the singer-songwriter unveiled her new music release bit by bit, starting with a mystery silhouette of herself drenched in full glam and a 20-second video of her “vibin’ to something new,” as the caption reads, while playing with her n a lengthier teaser, the NYMA talent flashed words on paper as the new single played in the background, revealing the title “Undangon Ta Ni.” She continued to explain that this will be her very first track in EnglishBisaya “with a twist.” She reminded everyone she is a proud Cebuano and then shared the theme of the single toward the end of the video: “The song reminds us that it’s okay to choose ourselves and not settle for less.” “Undangon Ta Ni,” which loosely translates to “Let’s Stop This” in English, released under Underdog Music, was composed and produced by Cebu-based songwriters Relden Campanilla, Carlisle Tabanera and Ferdinand Aragon, along with Morissette and her husband Dave Lamar.The track tells of moving forward and choosing oneself. The girl in my song chose to stop a stagnant relationship with this guy and move forward. She chose herself and decided to not settle for less. I hope that message resonates with people. One of the things that I also really love about this song is the production of it. The instrumentation of it. Napaka-angas lang talaga Working with my producers is really an honor for me. It’s very different from what people know my music to be,” said CelebratingMorissette.her12th anniversary in show business, Morissette got her big break after finishing in the Top 8 of ABS-CBN’s The Voice Philippines Season 1. In 2017, she represented the Philippines in the 14th Asia Song Festival in Busan, South Korea, and returned the following year for the 15th Asia Song MorissetteFestival.isone of the exclusive talents under NYMA (www.nyma.ph), a talent agency focused on nurturing trailblazers to break through all media spaces. She currently posts vlogs on her YouTube, Facebook and TikTok pages.

Quiet documentariesvlogging/silent

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

Morissette releases Bisaya single ‘Undangon Ta Ni’

Continued from B4 a gallery heritage on the second floor and a shop downstairs that sells Peranakan clothing, souvenirs, collectibles and snacks. One of the people we interviewed in the succeeding days described a Peranakan as a person with Chinese and Malay parents. Peranakans are descendants of Chinese settlers in the Straits peninsula, meaning both Singapore and Malaysia. In the movie Crazy Rich Asians, the mansion of the Youngs of Singapore had many Peranakan elements. These included the staircase, the ceramic jars by the entrance, the narrow windows in the living room, the paintings on the walls, and many others. At Rumah Kim Choo, we got to see different variations of the traditional sarong kebaya and beaded shoes, furniture (including a matrimonial bed), and many other elements of the Peranakan culture. If you’ve been to Singapore a number of times and have never done a cultural tour, this is a good place to start. Edmond Wong, corporate social responsibility (CSR) director of Rumah Kim Choo, gave us the tour and talked about what makes the Peranakan culture so unique.Wewere served traditional snacks of rice dumplings, pineapple tarts and kue lapis plus tea. Edmond and his brother Raymond, the fashion designer for Rumah Kim Choo, are third generation family members. Their grandfather started the place in the 1940s. Edmond sees the business as a cultural one and the company’s CSR efforts, all with an eye for preserving Peranakan culture and heritage, are quite strong. For instance, Rumah Kim Choo has provided free classes on Peranakan shoe beading for those less privileged and needed supplementary sources of income. Edmond admitted the tourism sector is just now getting back on its feet after the setbacks caused by the pandemic. The next place we visited was Cat Socrates (448 Joo Chiat Road), a cat-themed boutique in Joo Chiat Road. We also glimpsed their Tiong Bahru branch the day before but it was the Joo Chiat store that we entered. Cat Socrates has a resident cat named Zoo Zoo. If you’re a cat lover, this is the place to be as they have different books, souvenirs and accessories that are cat-themed. Some of their merchandise carry other themes, such as dogs and alpacas. The items are mostly made by talented local artists. Another place at East Coast Road we visited was Awfully Chocolate (131 East Coast Road), another Singaporean brand that started with a chocolate cake and has since grown into a multi-outlet chocolatier and bakeshop. We tried their dark chocolate truffles and chocolate chip cookies and they were pretty awesome that we bought more cookies to take home to the Philippines. The chocolates really has a sophisticated taste. This trip to Singapore really made me realize how much I miss this city. One other thing I love about the state is how efficient things are, from its transport system to its retail landscape. My daughter came with me on this trip at her own expense. Before this trip, she had been to Singapore only once and that was eight or seven years ago. But she was easily able to navigate the transport system, thus saving a lot of money than if she had taken taxis or Grab rides. She also booked her tours, airport transfers, Singapore SIM and even meals on online booking platform Klook, which offers discounted rates on attractions. Among the attractions my daughter booked were the Segway tour in Marina Bay, a fivecourse meal at Conrad and afternoon tea at Fullerton. Because she rode trains and buses, my daughter got to see how efficiently Singapore is handling the Covid-19 crisis. For example, antigen test kits are easily available at drugstores and even vending machines. Masks are readily available and most Singaporeans wear them everywhere even if the government has already lifted the required masking outdoors. Every establishment has disinfecting gel or liquid at strategic places including the entrance, cashier areas and even around the store and on tables in restaurants. I was at Sephora in Ion Orchard when I saw two women talking and one of them had her mask down. Within seconds, a security staff had approached the two women to remind them about masking. For the second day, we had lunch at Chilli Padi Nonya, which was basically a traditional version of Po. I loved all the dishes and desserts, including beef rendang, nonya achar, plain ol’ chendol, babi pongteh belly braised in a sweet and savory sauce) and hiang (minced pork and shrimps wrapped in beancurd skin, kind of like embotido). This restaurant is a hidden gem that you must visit when you’re in Singapore. It’s at 11 Joo Chiat Place #0103. It’s so easy to search for when you’re taking a Grab car or a taxi. Next week, we present more of the flavors and features of Sinagpore in the concluding part of this piece. n Singapore tourism highlights local brands as it reopens doors to tourists: Part 1

T HERE is hope in vlogging. Generally identified with the intensely personal, intimate to the point of being gross, new kinds of vlogs are multiplying online. These are vlogs that do not make you feel inhuman and do not toy with our humanity as if it is a dispensable asset. These vlogs are not an attempt to challenge you to try out the ridiculous. They also are not made by Filipinos.Iamcertain that out there are vlogs that take themselves so seriously and have become bland exercises in cultural analysis, but I have yet to encounter a vlog made in the Philippines which, if not obsessed with the vlogger in love with his own voice, is overly annotated, each scene pushed to be a moment, each second accompanied by smart alecky remarks, every occurence a celebration not of that which is being observed but of the observer who must think he is omnisciently charming. Is it in our culture to outtalk landscapes or events? Is it natural for us to explain materials to death? If we say yes to those two questions, then we are up against the splendor of vlogs from other places that are presented with amazing stillness. They come from geographical spots as disparate as Azerbaijan in winter and Vietnam under the rain; they can be postings from cave-like dwellings in Iran to a wellstocked kitchen in Sri Lanka. They share something in common: the lack of a voice commenting after each and every step of the characters onscreen. What we see on screen are labels or captions about the events taking place—the harvesting of berries, the gathering of ingredients for a dessert, the names of the pets. It is obvious that these vlogs have reached a decision: to let the field speak. The result is nothing short of a cinematic miracle, as we are brought into that space—a village, a home, a woodland—as quietly as possible. After all, no one is talking, no one is overwhelming us with critical readings, directives or manifestos. Two of these social-media artifacts came to me through an accident. I was looking at videos of bamboo crafts when I got curious about a woman looking for bamboo shoots. She turns out to be a Vietnamese who introduces herself as coming from a small village. She is shown climbing up a low trail, which leads her to a clump of bamboo. Her name is Ly Thi Ca. Who is handling the camera, is the question we ask as we follow this young woman searching through thickets of grasses, giant bamboo shoots. But we soon forget the technologies behind this vlog. What grips us is the ease by which this woman navigates the trails. As she reaches a spot, we see her cut off the shoot from the roots. She handles the bolo not as a hobbyist but as a veteran. She gathers more than what she can take in her basket, which she carries on her back. She makes two trips. She is definitely a strong woman. The next vlog shows her preserving the shoots. Her next vlog is still about bamboo. She gathers bamboo poles and builds a shed, all by herself. Her movement sure makes it appear that what she is doing is easy. One vlog leads to another vlog, each an adventure in skill. Is she fulfilling a challenge? Is she in any kind of training? Whatever it is, the vlog assumes, given its length, the form of a documentary, and to call her “empowered” patronizes the character/vlogger whose work gets more than a million views each. The other vlog is from another woman, who calls herself “Traditional Me.” She is from Sri Lanka. This vlogger has a more articulated web site. Scrolling down her vlog, you could find the link to her Facebook account where she introduces herself with these words: “Ayubowan! [a Sri Lankan salutation] I’m Nadee. Please accept my warm and loving welcome for everyone of you who came here to look into my story, and to know about myself. I was born in 1993 and grew up in this amazingly beautiful and picturesque, peaceful village named Dankotuwa in Sri Lanka.... This peaceful and beautiful village life...where I enjoy the most by looking after my grandmother and my younger brother in this nature’s gift of a village!” What attracted me to Nadee’s vlog is a photo of her under a tree bedecked with huge durian trees. I do not eat durian but her visual presentation, with no annotations except for the labels of ingredients, are so sincere, appealing and original that I searched for more of her vlogs. We often express our pride about our Philippine culinary heritage but looking at what this vlogger/ cook can concoct makes me think twice about how varied our dishes are. Nadee uses her surroundings in creating the most exotic I (this time I am correct when I use this as I am an outsider now) culinary inventions—all, as she says, “respecting” the tradition of her country. The long duration of cooking, the many pots and utensils used, and the surprising thing they can use with leaves of plants that are otherwise ornamental in our own gardens. In one episode, Nadee gathers Mussaenda leaves, which turn out to be from a tropical shrub, a variety of which is also indigenous in the Philippines, the Doña Aurora, noted for its white and green leaves. Nadee picks the white ones, coats them with flour, and makes them into “chips.” And the drinks they come up with! Green orange with peppercorn, June plum and sugarcane juice with all kinds of spices—cardamom, turmeric, chili, and other ingredients. Nadee’s vlogs average 3 million views each. I have added myself to the subscribers. There are more out there on the Internet, vlogs that are quiet, still, silent, wise. Devoid of the noise of commentaries, they do more for their countries’ tourism than all the hoopla of overthinking ads. They are noble representations of their cultures, as well. n

• Friday, August 12, 2022 B5 Show BusinessMirrorwww.businessmirror.com.ph

The FBSE Program promotes the best qualities and positive values of Filipino hospitality. It is envisioned to enhance and uplift the quality of tourism services in the country aimed at fostering excellent service to tourists as part of our distinct Filipino brand. Thereby, the excellence in service becomes a regional brand and a holistic national identity. With three unique modules, the tourism program aims to instill the culture of service excellence among tourism stakeholders in the country, and raise the quality of service standards among the workforce in key tourism and service sectors. “If we are able to come together to agree on certain standards that our destinations would comply with, then this would redound to the overall improvement of our tourism industry because in the end, tourists will be delighted with every destination that they visit, and keep coming back,” Frasco added. According to the DOT chief, the FBSE trainings will cover topics such as: Service Excellence, Understanding and Engaging Customers, and Complaints Handling. “The training for the tourism community in Virgin Island, Bohol will commence next week,” Secretary Frasco confirmed. These trainings, the tourism chief noted, will be open to all interested tourism stakeholders, and would be facilitated by the DOT Office of Industry Manpower Development (OIMD) together with the DOT Region 7 Office in coordination with the Local Government Units.

program seeks to democratize innovation by accelerating startups from all levels of society and placing them in front of qualifiedRonin,investors.CEOand co-founder Yani de Guzman, said the RISE initiative was established to gather creative minds and provide them financial access through funding and mentoring. “We hope to provide them [startups] the P500,000 financial aid when they reach certain milestones to ensure that the grant is helping them create a sustainable business, develop their structures, and form a solid legal foundation for their businesses. We will show and allow them to pitch [their ideas] in front of qualified investors,” de GuzmanAccordingsaid. to de Guzman, Pitch Night opens doors for a new generation of innovators, founders, and entrepreneurs to make their presence known in the region and connect them with potential investors while expanding their network.

In addition, de Guzman reminded startups, particularly those who believe their ideas have the potential for great success, that choosing the right investor or partners is one of the most critical financial decisions they will make. “We focused on young innovators and identified some founders already staking the startup ecosystem by storm,” she added.Hand-selecting the eight startups for their ideas, potential, and skills, Ronin and its partners are provided the opportunity to trial the investor-startup relationship and test innovations at a rapid pace in a supported environment. Makati City could benefit from the RISE challenge to transition into the country's premier tech hub. “I envision Makati as the new Silicon Valley of the Philippines, a hub for tech startups and a breeding ground for the next big thing,” Binay added. The mayor went on to say, “It is time you put your hard work to the test and show us what you‘ve got. I am confident that each of you has what it takes to succeed. So go out there, seize the opportunity and make us proud.ThePitch Night was held at the COLLAB Spaces, Sheraton Manila Hotel.

Friday, August 12, 2022B6

“We are facilitating this interagency technical working group (TWG) for the purpose of commencing discussions on the implementation of standards to ensure high quality of tourism services which include regulations on accommodations, services, and pricing standards,” said Secretary Frasco.

There’s more to forests than just trees

T O put a human face on the issues affecting our forests, the Association of Young Environmental Journalists (AYEJ), in collaboration with Forest Foundation Philippines, launched Kwentong Kalikasan Documentary Episodes that aim to protect and conserve forests. Episode 1 focuses on how to protect and conserve forests and take care of our environment. Episode 2 promotes responsible travel and care for our forests with Viajero Outdoor Centre’s wide array of products, services, and pieces of training. Finally, Episode 3 tackles the forests home to indigenous communities and all sorts of livelihood mean. The advocacy features stories and works of individuals and emerging advocates of forest conservation through a video series in the hopes of creating awareness and creatively documenting the positive impact of forest conservation work. It also aims to highlight the heroes and the champions behind forest conservation in Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental. For Episode 1, Thieza Verdejo, Deputy Director of Xavier Science Foundation chose the road less traveled. As a woman, it has never been easy. She was pressured with expectations to work in a corporate world but she eventually chose to concentrate on a career around the mountain ranges of Bukidnon.Xavier Science Foundation is a 53-yearold foundation that works to support development programs and projects. The foundation is the initiator of innovative programs and forums for dialogue. It acts as a conduit of funds – its prime mission. It envisions Mindanao to be hunger-free and competitive.According to Verdejo, the foundation finds it relevant to promote the ecosystem because many forests have been deluded. The country is faced with a lot of logging and deforestation that really destroyed our mountains because there are no more trees that hold on to the water that causes flooding. Protecting the environment or conserving our environment is a shared responsibility. It's not just for the IPs alone, not just for the community downstream alone but for co-existence as human beings with nature/ environment.“Nature shall continue doing its own thing. But for humanity who has that capacity to think and do things, it's us who should take responsibility. We should consider nature as our abode, as our home and we have to take care of it,” Verdejo stressed. Episode 2 features Maria Reina Olavidez Bontuyan, a passionate mountaineer running a business advocating for sustainability. Bontuyan promotes responsible travel and cares for our forests with Viajero Outdoor Centers’ wide array of products, services, and pieces of training. “While taking up Development Communication, I discovered mountaineering in my last year of college. I decided to shift into fulltime being a mountaineer. Since then, I never stopped climbing. For a month we would climb three to five times a month in the Bukidnon area. Eventually, that experience we will share with the next generation,” Bontuyan shared. She equates her mountaineering experience to a spiritual journey. “I was enveloped in the very rich foliage of forest with the sound of birds. It's like a solo reunion or solo retreat with my Lord. It was more spiritual for me,” she confessed. After a couple of years of exploring mountains and going outdoor, Bontuyan

S M Foundation (SMFI) provided free medical consultation and medicines to more than 350 patients during its medical mission at SM City Rosario

STUDIES show that nearly 90 percent of startups eventually fail, leaving only 10 percent surviving to continue their journey. Startups' success depends on their ability to innovate, and transforming their ideas and scaling up operations require not just luck but proper mentoring and the right network. Eight startups received a P500,000 equity-free grant from Makati City after the qualifying pitching competition held on April 8 to sustain their development, while the founders attended a 12-week training program that will prepare them to pitch to qualified investors properly. On August 9, some of the country's top investors and innovators met the eight qualified startups for the culmination of the RISE (Resiliency Innovation Sustainability Entrepreneurship) Pitch Night. The event was their final pitch to investors to open new investment opportunities.“Forthepast 12 weeks, you have undergone rigorous training and mentorship from the industry's best minds,” Makati City Mayor Abigail Binay told the eight startups. She also commended the RISE program for providing opportunities to up-andcoming entrepreneurs with ideas to offer. Binay added, “Initiatives like the RISE program are so important, and they provide a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their talents and turn their game-changing ideas into reality.” Hosted by the investment holding company Ronin Group in collaboration with the local government of Makati City and the University of Makati, the RISE certification program aims to create a sustainable and scalable pipeline. The felt the need for safe outdoor gear and equipment. She would go to Cebu or Manila and even outside of the country to purchase outdoor equipment. Then she thought of buying a couple of items and selling them in Cagayan de Oro. That's how she decided to build a business. Today, the Mindanao-based retail store specializing in outdoor recreational or sports equipment, also conducts outdoor education training. While promoting, safe responsible travel, Bontuyan is also giving her full attention to forest conservation. “There are many lessons in our 27 years journey but if I'm going to pick one, the valuable lesson is the need for a community, we can work together. We want to continue our advocacy and passion to share and be able to reach out to everybody. It's a calling that we can say never say no,” she said in her video interview.InEpisode 3, Archie Tulin who works as a research Management Officer of the Land Timber Forest Product Exchange Program Philippines, admits to developing his sense of environmentalism already in his college years. Now, as a development worker, striving to address the climate crisis, Archie proves that it is never too late to make an “Typhoonimpact.Yolanda really opened my eyes that climate change is here knocking on our doors. From then on, I made a pledge to myself to contribute to addressing the climate crisis. That's how I started my journey in development work,” Archie“Whatrecalled.keeps me moving and motivated for the past 8 years is the thought that even as a young person like me can do little things for the community that in the long run can make up positive impact for them, especially for the environment,” Tulin shared. This episode tackles the ways people can help conserve the forests with the support and assistance of the Non-Timber Forest Products - Exchange Programme Philippines (NTFP-EP). After all, forests are home to indigenous communities and all sorts of livelihood mean, making them more than just trees. Watch the three docus here: https:// fb.watch/eElJGaLPfq/, https://fb.watch/ eElIpSL4od/, and https://fb.watch/ eElG46IIJ6/. in Cavite. Other diagnostic services were also offered including x-ray, ECG, sugar test, cholesterol test, uric acid test, and hemoglobin test. This social good initiative was made possible through collaboration with the Dalta Jonelta Foundation; Department of Social Welfare and Development; Rosario, Cavite local government unit; and Philippine Red Cross - Cavite Chapter. SMFI, through its Health and Medical Programs, upgrades public health centers in its host communities, complemented by its medical caravans across the country. To date, it has renovated more than 170 health and wellness centers and served more than 1 million patients during its medical missions.

Startups shine at RISE Pitch Night

SMFI brings basic health services to SM City Rosario

As a global provider of integrated imaging solutions for diagnosis and treatment, the Philips portfolio of imaging products are focused on seamlessly connecting data, technology, and people. Based on a fundamental understanding of radiology workflow, IntelliSpace PACS technology delivers advanced efficiency tools for higher quality patient care. Connected through this informatics platform, the range of Philips solutions to be installed at the Makati Life Medical Center are focused on providing the latest innovations that will ensure precise diagnosis, optimized workflow - allowing specialists and clinicians to allot less time towards navigating software in order to devote more time to solving diagnostics challenges that improve lives.

R OYAL Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology through Basemed Inc., has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Life Nurture Inc. to install a range of multimodal health technologies at the newest specialty care destination -- the Makati Life Medical Center. The solutions to be installed for diagnosis and treatment include the Philips Azurion 7 C20, the Philips Ingenia Prodiva 1.5T CS, the Philips BV Vectra mobile C-arm system, Philips Incisive CT 128 Slice, and the Philips MobileDiagnost wDR. “At Philips, we believe in breaking down boundaries and removing the complexities that stand in the way of delivering seamless access to healthcare,” said Natasha Kwan, Regional General Manager, Philips Health Systems for Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Growth Markets, Philips APAC. “Our integrated imaging solutions for diagnosis and treatment enable more connected care, and more confident decision-making. Through cutting-edge machines and equipment, we look forward to working with Makati Life Medical Center to provide top-quality value-based care to people within and beyond the borders of the city,” she added. Dr. Dennis Sta. Ana, President and CEO, Makati Life Medical Center said “Makati Life Medical Center is committed to care delivered in the best interests of the patient. From our roster of medical and surgical specialists, to state-of-the-art machines and equipment, we endeavor to ensure high standards of diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. As an innovative leader in healthcare, we are glad to partner with Philips to enable access to technology that brings quality care to our patients and saves more lives in the process.”

The Department, Frasco said, has reached out to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Agriculture (DA), and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), which shall comprise the said TWG.

Philips to install innovative range of multimodality imaging solutions at Makati Life Medical Center

Forest Foundation PH, AYEJ launch Kwentong Kalikasan

The tourism chief said that the DOT can help improve the standards of treating tourists in all destinations through the facilitation of trainings under the Filipino Brand of Service Excellence (FBSE) Program.

DOT, TWG to strengthen the Filipino Brand of Service

docu series:

EXECUTIVES FROM PHILIPS, BASEMED KARE INC., AND ELEKTA, ATTEND THE CONTRACT SIGNING AGREEMENT,

T OURISM Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco on Thursday (August 4) bared the Department of Tourism (DOT)’s immediate plans to facilitate an interagency technical working group (TWG) which seeks to strengthen the capacity of micro entrepreneurs such as food vendors to provide quality tourism services.

FROM LEFT: Basemed Kare Inc. Director Karl Zapanta, Philips Sales and Clinical Modality head Seneriza Castro, Basemed Kare Inc. President Bernadette Zapanta, Basemed Kare Director Christian Dominic Isip and Elekta Regional Sales Marketing Manager Deonne Rosales.

T HE Philippines celebrated amazing achievements in various sporting fronts in the jolly month of July. Pole vault ace Ernest John “EJ” Obiena, the women’s football team Fili pinas, karate stalwart Junna Tsukii and new professional world boxing champ Dave “The Doberman” Apolinario took turns bringing honors to the country to earn the nod of the Philippine Sports writers Association (PSA) as the top performers for the month. Obiena vaulted to a new Asian record of 5.94 meters, surpassing his own 5.93-meter standard, on his way to capturing a historic bronze medal at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. The feat strengthened the 26-year-old Obiena’s standing among the world’s elite and lifted him to No. 3 in the global rankings. N ot long after clinching a qualifying ticket to the prestigious FIFA Women’s World Cup, the rampaging Filipinas carved their names into the record books by ruling the Asean Football Federation Women’s Championship. The Filipinas, drawing added fire from a roaring home crowd at the Rizal Memorial Stadium, brought down holder Vietnam in the semisfinal, 4-0, then met their date with destiny with a 3-0 title clincher over four-time champion Thailand. Tsukii brought “woman power” to a higher lever with her triumphant campaign at the World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. The Filipino-Japanese upstaged world No. 2 Yorgolis Salazar of Venezuela, 2-0, to cop the women’s -50 kgs gold medal for Team Philippines. Like a whiff of fresh air, the undefeated Apolinario captured the International Boxing Organization fly weight title with a cracking first-round knockout of hometown bet Gideon Buthelezi in East London, South Africa. A polinario (17-0 with 12 knockouts) filled the void after Mark Magsayo lost the Philippines’s remaining world title earlier in the month. Filipino youngsters also scored big as the future Hidilyn Diazes harvested 15 gold medals in the Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships in Bohol’sTaskhent.prideVanessa Sarno, 17, swept the gold medals in snatch (100 kgs), clean and jerk (130 kgs) and total lift (23 0kgs) in the junior women’s 71 kgs category to lead thecharge.Philippine ERNEST JOHN “EJ” OBIENA clears 5.94 meters in Oregon.

Lydia De Vega’s legacy will live on especially in how she paved the way for the likes of Olympic gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz in capturing the imagination of girls in sports.”

LYDIA DE VEGA is all smiles in her last public appearance as one of eight Filipino sports icons who carried the Southeast Asian Games Federation flag during the opening ceremony of the 30th Southeast Asian Games at the New Clark City in Tarlac in November 30, 2019.

—Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo She not only ruled the tracks, she also won the hearts of Filipinos for her world-class talent which rallied our country to a great sense of national pride and honor.” Senator Sherwin Gatchalian Kaisa ko ang buong bansa sa pagluluksa sa pagpanaw ng isang alamat. Hindi natin malilimutan ang karangalang ibinigay niya sa ating mga Pilipino mula noong dekada 1980s. Dahil sa kanya, naging kahanga-hanga ang Pilipinas sa ating karatig bansa. Pero higit pa rito, atin siyang dapat pasalamatan sa inspirasyong ibinigay niya sa atin, hindi lamang bilang atleta at bilang Pilipino.”

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz L AWMAKERS on Thursday said Congress should honor Filipino sprinter Lydia de Vega by establishing a pension system for national athletes and upgrade their allowances as they condoled with the family of the legendary athlete, who died on Wednesday at 57. Lydia de Vega was one of the greatest and the most decorated Filipino athletes,” Speaker Martin Romualdez said. “She brought honor and pride to our country by winning numerous medals in the Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games and Asian Athletics Championships.”Herdeathhighlights the need for our government and the private sector to support Filipino athletes not only while they are healthy and physically able to compete but in retirement as well,” the House leader said. Deputy Majority Leader Alfred de los Santos said despite the glory that De Vega has brought to our country, the current system was not able to give her the full support that she needed in her last few years. Providing adequate financial and health-care support for our distinguished national athletes is achievable, now that our economic standing is improving. Allocating for the support and development of our national athletes will always be a good investment,” de los Santos said. Financial security for our ath letes and their immediate families is a necessary policy that our coun try should undertake now. We laud the Philippine Sports Commission’s recent focus on fostering financial literacy among athletes. Perhaps these efforts could be bolstered by public-private partnership projects aimed at investing in the financial Serena loses 1st match since saying she’s ready to retire T WilliamsSerenaORONTO— wore her game face when she stepped out into the stadium for her first match since telling the world she is ready to walkedfromdidn’tchampion didn’t23-timestandingtennis.leave professionalGreetedbyaovation, theGrandSlamsmile.Shewave.Shetookasipaplasticbottleasshein.Somefolksinthecrowdcapturedthemomentwiththecamerasontheircellphones.Othersheldalofthandrawnsigns—oh,somany

signs—with messsages such as “Queen” or “Thank you.” No one knows exactly how many more matches Williams will play before she puts her rackets away for good, and the 40-year-old American exited the National Bank Open on Wednesday night with a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Belinda Bencic. W hile there were some familiar fist pumps and yells of “Come on!” during competition, it was only afterward that Williams really allowed her feelings to show, her voice shaking and her eyes welling during an on-court interview when Bencic ceded the spotlight. “A lot of emotions, obviously,” Williams told spectators who offered her encouragement throughout the clear, 75-degree evening. The second-round match at the hard-court tuneup for the US Open came a day after she announced “the countdown has begun” on her playing career, saying she wants to have another child and pursue business interests. She did not state precisely what her last event will be, but did make it sound as if her final farewell will come at the US Open, which begins Augusty 29 in New York. Williams has won the singles title at Flushing Meadows a half-dozen times—first in 1999, most recently in 2014—to go along with seven championships apiece at Wimbledon and the Australian Open, plus three at the French Open. “ It’s been a pretty interesting 24 hours,” Williams said after Wednesday’s match. I’m terrible at goodbyes,” she added, her hand on her chest, “but goodbye, Toronto!” Ne xt up on her schedule is the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati next week, another event that serves as preparation for the year’s last Grand SlamWtournament.illiams, a themanytournamentvictories,sohelpedserveofftoo,laterDeliveredenough,thisCanada,championthree-timeinstartedmatch,fittinglywithanace.anotherinthatgame,showingthesuperbthathertomanymatchsomanytitles,soweeksatNo.1inrankings.

condolencesleadersAseanTolentino,sportsconvey

By Josef Ramos IJOIN the entire nation in mourning the untimely demise of former Asian sprint queen Lydia de Vega, after a four-year battle with breast cancer. My sincerest condolences to her family and loved ones. Lydia was once touted as the fastest woman in Asia and she placed the Philippines in the map of international athletics. Lydia de Vega has run her last race. She has finished her contest. She has fought a good fight. Let us pray for her peace.”—President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. A legend, an icon. Lydia de Vega-Mercado, who has held the title as Asia’s Sprint Queen, received an outpouring tribute from her fellow athletes—past and present—after she succumbed to complications from stage four breast cancer on Wednesday evening at the Makati Medical Center. Her contemporaries in the glorious Philippine athletics years in the 1980s and early 1990s led by fellow track and field legend Elma Muros-Posadas, Isidro del Prado and Hector Begeo expressed deep sadness when they learned about their teammates demise through the Facebook timeline of De Vega’s daughter Stephanie de Koenigswarter “It’s very unacceptable and painful. But if we see her suffer, I believe it’s really time to let her go so she can now rest,” 15-time Southeast Asian Games gold medalist Muros-Posadas told BusinessMirror on Thursday. “Her memories will never fade, her achievements will forever live on.” Posadas-Muros, 55, also a twotime Asian Games bronze medalist, said De Vega’s legacy would definitely be a model to all aspiring generations of youngDespiteathletes.herfame throughout those years, she remained humble and approachable,” said MurosPosadas, who shared the limelight with De Vega as the PhilippineandtoisdelGameschampion.andlongcountry’sjumpqueenheptathlon Four-timeSEAgoldmedalistPradosaidDeVegaabiglossnotonlythePhilippinetrackfieldbuttotheentiresports.Welostaninspiration, a big inspiration for young runners,” the 400- and 800-meter and 4X400 relay Olympic athlete del Prado said. “She was a very brave and very joyful athlete. She was fierce and fearless even in training. I trained with her during the Gintong Alay days.” The 59-year-old Begeo, now based in Melbourne, Australia, was shocked when he heard the news. It’s definitely sad and painful to hear her gone. Her achievements will be etched in stone. Nobody will forget her,” the 3,000 steeplechase athlete said. “I’m hoping that one day there will be another Lydia de Vega.” Former Philippine Track and Field Association president now Laoag City Mayor Michael Keon offered his respect to de Vega on his Facebook post. “ Her legacy as an athlete will never die,” said Keon, who was head of the Project: Gintong Alay that saw De Vega rise from a raw but potential talent from Meycauayan, Bulacan, into becoming Asia’s Sprint“OnQueen.behalf of the City Government of Laoag, I extend deepest condolences to the family of Lydia de Vega who passed away last night,” he said. Keon said De Vega was one of the original 20 athletes who trained in Baguio City under Gintong Alay.

L YDIA DE VEGA’S imprint as a legendary athlete proved far and wide following the outpouring of condolences of sports leaders in the Southeast Asian region. Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino joined the country and his fellow sports leaders in grief following the demise of the former Asia’s Fastest Woman De Vega due to complications of stage four breast cancer on Wednesday. Another sad day for Philippine sports, and although we lost a great icon, she made an imprint on the hearts of all the people she inspired,” Tolentino said on Thursday. “Her story will always be a success story to all athletes that Filipinos are capable of being in the pedestal specially to those who dream and pursue it.”

Obiena

Speaker Romualdez, solons bat for pension for athletes

By Samuel Medenilla SHE fought a good fight. This was how President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. described former Asian Sprint Queen Lydia De Vega, who passed away last Wednesday at age of 57 due to breastLydiacancer. deVega has run her last race. She has finished her contest. She has fought a good fight. Let us pray for her peace,” Marcos said in a statement posted in his Facebook account. He honored the memory of De Vega-Mercado by recalling her feats in sports. D e Vega won gold in the 100 meters in the 1982 New Delhi and the 1986 Seoul Asian Games, and 1983 and 1987 Asian championships. She was also a ninetime Southeast Asian Games gold medalist and twice Olympian in 1984 in Los Angeles and in 1988 in Seoul. Lydia was once touted as the fastest woman in Asia and she placed the Philippines in the map of international athletics,” Marcos said. Here’s what they say about the loss of De Vega: I grieve as an athlete and friend. Lydia is my contemporary. It is such a big loss to Philippine sports. I was even counting on her to help me in my tasks as Commissioner since she was a PSC consultant for a long time. I am sure her legacy and achievements will continue to inspire for generations to come, as she was also an inspiration to me.”

AP security of our athletes,” he added. However, Delos Santos said this problem calls for more than just seminars and tie-ups. A t the level of national legislation, Delos Santos said, it has been seven years since Republic Act No. 10699 or the “National Athletes and Coaches Benefits and Incentives Act” took effect. Since then, inflation and the higher cost of living have caught up with the improvements that RA No. 10699 provided. It is time to update and upgrade the law to make it more responsive to the needs of our athletes,” he said.

—Senator Robin Padilla I am saddened by the loss of ‘one of our first female heroes.’ In her last days, she asked for financial help from the public because there are insufficient programs to support and give retirement benefits for our past Olympians.”

—Rep. Margarita Nograles (PBA party-list)

Philippine Sports Commission Commissioner O livia “Bong” Coo “Lydia ‘Diay’ de Vega-Mercado’s demise is a big loss to us. Dubbed ‘the fastest woman in Asia,’ she put Philippine sports on the world map and brought much honor to our country. She will long be remembered by the nation. May her achievements motivate other Filipino athletes to aspire for excellence in their chosen sport.”

—Rep. Elpidio Barzaga (Dasmariñas)

President Marcos Jr.: She fought a good fight

Sports B7Friday, August 12, 2022BusinessMirrormirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph | Editor: Jun Lomibao ‘DIAY,’ ASIAN SPRINT QUEEN, 57

Several of Tolentino’s fellow national Olympic committee (NOC) leaders expressed their grief for the sports icon who in the 1980s and 1990s, put the Southeast Asian region on the world sporting map. “On behalf of Brunei Darussalam NOC, I would like to convey our sincere condolences to the Philippines NOC and the family of the late Lydia de Vega,” Brunei NOC president Prince Haji Sufri Bolkiah told Tolentino in a message. Brother President Tolentino, our deepest condolences to the family of the late Lydia de Vega and all Philippines NOC,” said Indonesia Olympic Committee president Raja Sapta Oktohari, who like Tolentino also heads his country’s cycling federation. “May she rest In peace.” G en. Prawit Wongsuwan, president of the National Olympic Committee of Thailand (NOCT),was among the first to convey his condolences.“Wereceived this news with sadness. On behalf of NOCT, allow us to express our deepest condolences to the POC and the family of the late Lydia de Vega,” Wongsuwan said. “Her legacy continues to live on. May she Rest In Peace.” A nother NOCT official, Vice President Charoen Wattanasin, also sent his condolences to the POCDearhead.President Tolentino, with my deepest condolences and on behalf of [the] NOCT, to the family of the late Lydia de Vega and the Philippines NOC, may she Rest In Peace,” Wattanasin said. Singapore National Olympic Council president Tan Chuan-Jin said: “Our deepest condolences to the POC and the family of the late Lydia de Vega. Who can’t forget the iconic heads list of July honor roll SERENA WILLIAMS: I’m terrible at goodbye, “but goodbye, Toronto!” AP TOLENTINO

Safety in its core ThE next-gen Everest comes loaded with new and enhanced driver assist technologies and safety features that are designed to take the stress out of driving and help drivers to remain focused. These technologies include seven (7) airbags standard across all variants, Active Park Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control with stop and Go and Lane Centering, Lane Keeping system with road Edge detection, Forward Collision warning, Evasive steer Assist and reverse Brake Assist. Other safety features include: n Front and rear Parking sensors n security Alarm system n Child seat isOFi X Anchor Points “The next-gen Everest is an all-in-one su V package that combines capability, safety, and comfort. we understand that these are the same attributes that Filipino customers are looking for in their su V, so we’re confident that it is ready to be the Filipino family’s reliable partner during the busy workdays, and especially during weekends where we see families are sharing memorable moments together,” added Breen.

The next-generation Ford everest has officially made its local debut in the country, blending adventure-ready capability with exceptional comfort and customer-focused technology in a rugged, refined, and fun to drive SUV.

Customer-focused technology FuLLy equipped with the latest connectivity features, depending on the variant, customers can enjoy either an 8 or 12-inch digital instrument cluster, a distinguished upgrade from the previous generation analogue cluster. The next-gen Everest also features a large and high-resolution 10 or 12-inch touchscreen infotainment screen with the latest s y NC® 4A, which is linked to a 360-degree camera with a display that helps drivers with parking and cruising through off-road terrains. it also comes with wireless charging feature to keep everyone inside connected at allThetimes.next-gen Everest also has an intelligent Oil Life Monitor (iOLM), a smart new feature that tells the owner when to have an oil change based on actual engine data, operating conditions, and owner driving habits.

Powerful drivetrain and drive modes ThE next-gen Everest gives customers a choice of engines to suit their needs and lifestyles.The2.0L Bi-Turbo mated with a 10-speed automatic transmission is available on the Titanium+ 4x4 variant capable of 210Ps of maximum power and 500Nm of maximum torque, while the 2.0L single Turbo mated with a 6-speed automatic transmission is available for the other Everest variants, capable of 170Ps of maximum power and 405Nm of maximum torque. with the next-gen Everest’s terrain management system, drivers are given command of six on- and off-road drive modes (Normal, Eco, Tow haul, sl ippery, Mud/ruts and sand to help master every terrain. The dr ive Mode selector provides drivers with an easy way to shift drive modes easily, while the E- shifter brings a new level of high-tech control to your fingertips with optimized performance for different surfaces, road conditions, and vehicle usage. All these exciting features are exclusively available on the Titanium+ 4x4 variant. Additionally, all Everest models come standard with the electric parking brake.

New look, new capabilities VisuA LLy, the next-generation r anger is bold and confident, with a purposeful exterior that shares Ford’s global truck design dNA. The design features a defined new grille and signature C-clamp headlight treatment at the front while a subtle shoulder line down the sides incorporates new wheel-arches design that gives r anger a sure-footed stance. For the first time, the next-gen r anger is equipped with matrix LEd headlights with Adaptive Front Lighting system for the wi ldtrak 4x4 variant. Consistent with the look in front, the LEd taillamps clamp onto the new tailgate, now proudly stamped with the r A NGEr badge. Beneath the new bodywork is an upgraded chassis riding on a wheelbase 50mm longer and a track 50mm wider than the previous r anger. with new fenders and larger wheel arches, the next-gen r anger has a more dramatic, sculpted appearance. The next-gen r anger incorporates several intuitive designs, making the pick-up truck more user-friendly for any lifestyle. A rear box step makes accessing the cargo area easier and safer. Clamp pockets allows users to attach timber or tools to the tailgate work bench, which can also be concealed with spring loaded caps when not in use. in the wi ldtrak model, the roof rails create even more space for oversized cargo. For easier tailgate operations, the next-generation r anger has the Tailgate Lift Assist–enabling users to close the tailgate with just a light touch. Cargo organizing also comes with a new load box and tailgate protective capping for more grip and safety. Redesigned interior and enhanced connectivity iNsidE , the next-gen r anger is a step up from its previous iterations, using premium soft-touch materials to go with a roomy cabin. At the heart of the r anger’s connective experience is the large 10-inch or best-in-class 12-inch touchscreen in the center stack. it complements the fully digital instrument panel and is loaded with Ford’s latest s y NC® 4A with wireless Apple Carplay and Android Auto capability.

Rugged outside A widEr track by 50mm and 50mm longer wheelbase give the next-gen Everest its more progressive, muscular appearance, with a dramatic swell over the wheels that comes from a strong shoulder line that runs from front to back enhancing the strong and modern look. A mix of horizontal and vertical elements on the front end add to a more stable look, with Ford’s global design dNA reflected in the C-clamp headlamps and horizontal upper grille bar. The LEd taillights set in a full-width design emphasize the Everest’s increased track. The panoramic moonroof available in the Titanium variants allows fresh air to get into the cabin at the touch of a button, while the hands-free power liftgate allows easy and quick access into the Everest’s spacious trunk with a kick of one’s foot under the sensor. A sanctuary inside iNsidE , the next-gen Everest boasts of a roomy interior with plush leather seats, premium finishes and ambient lighting in areas where they can be appreciated best. The sense of spaciousness is amplified by the full-width instrument panel and center console with dual cupholder recesses, plus dash-mounted ‘pop out’ cupholders for front seat occupants. Thanks to the second-row seats’ ability to slide further forward than before, access to the third-row seats is much easier. Additionally, all occupants have more places to store their things, and can charge their devices through power outlets in all three rows. Ford prioritized flexible seating in the next-gen Everest – the second-row slides with a 60:40 split seatback and the 50:50 split third row in the seven-seater configuration can be folded at the touch of a button on high-series models. Both the second- and third-row seats are designed to fold flat to allow for long loads to be carried safely. Additionally, a hands-free liftgate opens with a simple kick, allowing users to open the back door of the vehicle even with their hands full–enabling easier cargo loading.

Ford Philippines is also announcing that the next-gen Everest will come with a fiveyear warranty to enhance the ownership experience. The longer warranty offering will cover the next-gen Everest for up to five years or total mileage of up to 150,000 kilometers, whichever comes first. Armed with more customer feedback than ever before, the objective behind the development for the next-gen Everest was clear: Tough on the outside, sanctuary on the inside, amazing capability underneath.

The sophisticated and comfortable interior is underpinned by an updated chassis, wider track, and refined suspension tuning. simply put, the next-gen Everest offers a balanced ride performance, whether on the highway or rough terrain.

FOr d Philippines has also launched the much-awaited next-generation Ford r anger, the smartest, most versatile, and most capable r anger ever. The next-gen r a nger features improved capability and comfort, advanced technologies, and smart connectivity that deliver new and improved experiences to pick-up customers. Ford Philippines said that the next-gen r anger will come with a five-year warranty to enhance the ownership experience. The longer warranty offering will cover the nextgen r anger for up to five years or total mileage of up to 150,000 kilometers, whichever comes first. “ we recognize that an important purchase consideration for our customers is vehicle ownership. That’s why we are launching the next-gen r anger together with a longer warranty coverage to provide our customers with added protection and peace of mind. This is part of our commitment to enhance the Ford ownership experience as we continue to treat our customers like family,” shared Michael Breen, managing director, Ford Philippines.

Ford Ranger delivers smart connectivity, enhanced capability and worry-free ownership experience

The Ford Ranger

BusinessMirrorFriday, August 12, 2022B8 Motoring Editor: Tet Andolong Next-geNeratioNFordeveresttakescomFort,saFetyaNdowNershipexperieNcetotheNextlevel

The Ford everest